


the blossoms, just in time

by thewindraiser



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nanny AU, Rated Mature for Later Chapters, Slow Build, daichi is an actual dad, suga oikawa and aone are flatmates, very slow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 07:22:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 39
Words: 351,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6895321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewindraiser/pseuds/thewindraiser
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nanny Required</p>
<p>I am looking for a nanny to look after my 8 years old daughter and 4 years old son Monday to Friday from 14:00 to 19:00. They must be a caring, energetic person by nature, well-educated and reliable. Experience working with children and a first aid qualification are required. I’m willing to pay-</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Suga looks down at the salary and before he knows it he’s already searching for his phone.<br/>Sawamura Daichi-san answers almost immediately and for a moment Suga is caught off guard at how attractive the man’s voice is.<br/>“Hello?”<br/>“Yes, um, hi. I’m calling about your ad for a nanny. My name is Sugawara Koushi…”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. world spins madly on

It’s always the same dream. Every time with a few details changed, sure, but this is where Suga finds himself as soon as his eyes close.

Alone on a carousel.

This time he is leaning heavily on a white horse as he tries to catch his breath.

_Why am i so tired in the first place?_

The paint is chipped on the mane and he can feel the roughness of naked wood under his fingertips. He looks down and, sightless, the horse returns his gaze. Shivers run down Suga’s back and he moves away from it, his feet unsteady.

The platform is spinning wildly beneath him.

He reaches a carriage, blue and gold, and sits heavily in it. The world around him is a whirlwind of colors, blurs and splotches without a real shape. An Impressionist’s landscape seen from far too close. Suga squints, tries to find a pattern of lines or shadows but the trees stay overwhelming greens, the leaves seem to have all merged into one they are indistinguishable. The people watching from down below are faceless mannequins clapping their hands in rhythm to a music Suga can’t hear.

The carouself keeps spinning, it picks up even more speed and Suga closes his eyes as a wave of nausea hits him.

Beep. Beep.

_What the hell is this noise?_

Suga wants it to stop. He wants to step down and feel the solid, unmovable earth under him but he can’t. The wheel is spinning too fast, if he tries to jump he knows he’ll hurt himself.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

A heavy weight settles on his stomach and Suga yelps in surprise.

He is awake now.

He is awake. His heart is hammering in his chest, so fast it hurts, his breath comes out in short, shallow pants as the smell of lavender fills his nostrils. He’s in his bed. He looks around mildly frantic, takes in the familiar spotted ceiling, the bright aqua walls, the sparse furniture and the piles of books everywhere on the floor. He’s in his apartment, he is in his room.

_Meiji University. Surugadai. Tokyo. Meiji University. Surugadai. Tokyo. Meiji University. Surugadai. Tokyo._

He breathes in deeply and it comes out shaky but a smile has already started to make its way on his face. Relief. That’s when he notices two familiar sets of golden eyes staring at him intensely. Edward Elric, from his spot on Suga’s wall, challenges him to get up and start the day armed with determination and Onyx from her perch on Suga’s stomach – _so that’s what that weight was_ – silently orders him not to move. So spoiled.

Sadly for her the alarm goes off again and when Suga catches sight of the time he flies out of bed. Onyx meows in reproach and indignation and follows him out of the room, sneaking between his legs and almost making him trip.

“You are the literal spawn of Satan, admit it,” he hisses, a hand on the wall to steady himself.

Onyx doesn’t confirm or deny his accusation, she just meows softly at him and rubs her precious face against Suga’s calf.

“Cutest evil spawn i’ve ever seen,” he sighs, utterly defeated.

“Is that my new nickname?” A voice calls from down the hallway.

Suga turns around briefly and quickens his pace. Tooru will not get to the bathroom first, not today. “You wish, Oikawa. You wish.”

Steps approach. “Well, it’s a little too long in my opinion but it warms my heart to know that you think i’m pretty, Kou-chan.”

“I think you are exhausting,” Suga deadpans and he is just about to add more – like whiny, or grating - when his bare feet hit the wet bathroom floor and he slips. Tooru manages to catch him before he can say goodbye to his tailbone, his arms around Suga’s waist, and holds him up effortlessly. _Thank goodness for athletes’ reflexes._

“You don’t need to thank me, Koushi, it was nothing really,” Tooru says in his hair, the smugness clear in his voice.

But Suga is not really listening, too busy trying to find an explanation as to why _the fuck_ there is water on their bathroom floor. He gently moves away from Tooru’s hold and looks around. It doesn’t take him long to find it, it’s quite obvious – _and_ _copious, fuck_ – the sink is leaking, down, where the pipe disappears inside the wall.

Tooru follows his line of sight and cusses. “Please tell me i’m not actually seeing what i think i’m seeing.”

Onyx meows pitifully and starts headbutting Suga’s leg, clearly distraught at having gotten her paws all wet. Suga picks her up and hides his face in her soft fur. He can already feel a headache build up near his temples.

“Wake Taka up, I know he doesn’t have class until eleven but he needs to see this,” he tells Tooru and drags a bucket under the leak with his foot.

Today is so going to suck.

 

 

*

 

“So let me get this straight, Kou-chan: we need to pay for the pipe repair with our own money?”

Suga sighs and holds the phone between his neck and shoulder as he tries to fit three mighty oaks worth of papers in his bag. “Yes, that’s exactly what i’m trying to say, Tooru.”

On the other end of the line Tooru makes a sound that closely reminds Suga of a drowning rat. He might be really drowning for all Suga knows, with the state of their hydraulic system and their piss poor luck Suga would hardly be surprised if coming back home he’d have to reach his room swimming.

“But we can’t afford that! We barely have enough money to eat!”

“And don’t you think i told them that? They don’t care. We broke it, we fix it, to quote the _genial_ lady at the reception.”

In a fit of irritation Suga shoves the papers inside with so much force the strap of his rotten bag snaps. Books and papers and pens fly down and land pathetically on the sidewalk under his horrified, powerless gaze. He dismisses Tooru with a ‘’talk to you soon’’ and sighs for what feels like the hundredth time today. _At least it’s not raining_ , he thinks to himself.

He swiftly looks up to make sure no clouds have magically appeared above his head to pour down on him. The sun winks at him, warm and bright like it hasn’t been in months, in a background of baby blue clear, endless skies. Small mercies and all that.

He crouches down to recollect his things and now he can sense it, the way people’s stares have all come to fix on him. A flush spreads on his cheeks to rise to his ears and he stubbornly keeps his eyes on the ground, checks his stuff for any damage. His books and pens all seem to have come out of this tragedy unscathed but the papers are lying messily everywhere on the sidewalk - _reordering them will be a pain_ \- and his bag is pretty much done for.

A sweet voice addresses him softly, overpowering the defeaning noises of lunch hour traffic.

“Do you need help, onii-san?”

Suga looks up and finds a kid standing before him with a bunch of his papers in hand. She is tall, Suga would say she is about ten years old but her round face and the missing front tooth suggest she might be younger. She has freckles on her nose. At the sight of her Suga’s lips instinctively curve into a smile.

“Yes, please. Thank you.”

Together they only take a moment to collect all of Suga’s wayward papers and put them in his bag. He still needs to run a couple of errands and he doesn’t have the time to go home and look for a replacement – nevermind the money to _buy_ a new one - so for now he’ll have to make do and carry it under his arm all across the city. Sounds delightful.

The kid hands him the last of his pens and says “It’s too bad that your bag broke, it was pretty.”

Suga is pretty sure his heart just grew three sizes. Nobody has ever said that about his old, yellow patchwork bag. “You think so?”

She nods emphatically. “Yes, it has a lot of personality.”

“I always say the exact same thing! My dad got it for me when i started uni.”

Without even noticing they have started walking side by side down the street.

“Can’t you fix it?”

“I could, yeah, but the seams are falling apart too, see?” He takes the bag out from under his arm and shows it to her. While she is looking down to examine the bag he notices a brush of color in her dark hair. It’s a bobby pin…with a shrimp on it. His eyes widen and he draws in a sharp breath.

“Where did you get that?” he asks, pointing at her hair.

She touches the bobby pin carefully then beams at him. “My dad got it for me! I have a whole collection, i have one with a jellyfish, a clownfish, a starfish…but this is my favourite!”

“It’s so cool!”

And he means it. He has a collection of bobby pins himself, his hair gets in the way when he studies and after stealing one too many from Tooru, his flatmate had had enough of it and bought him an entire box of glittered bobby pins. From that day on it’s become a sort of inside joke between them, to always buy each other hair products for their birthdays. Suga will have to go look for these shrimp ones and beg Tooru to buy them for him.

They reach an intersection and the kid stops. Suga has to turn right and stay on the sidewalk but he decides to at least cross the road with her. She sticks close to him then, a hand gripping lightly on his sleeve. Once on the other side of the street he bows formally at her and she laughs that wonderful laughter children have.

“Thank you…” he says, then he stops when he realizes he never even asked for her name.

She is quick to catch on the reason behind his hesitancy and she offers an slightly sheepish “Ayame…”

She mustn’t like it very much if the way she whispers it is any indication and it’s too bad because it really does fit her well.

“That’s a beautiful name,” Suga says and her eyes twinkle with joy. “Thank you, Ayame-chan, you saved me earlier.”

“It was nothing…um…”

“Suga.”

A man in a wrinkled suit bumps into Suga and he realizes they are both just standing in the middle of a busy sidewalk. He’s made it an habit today, to be an hindrance to passersby.

He bows again at Ayame-chan and with one last smile and a goodbye he crosses the road again.

“Bye bye, Suga-san!”

When he turns around at the end of the street she is still waving.

 

 

*

 

Suga gets home just in time for dinner, his head a mess of thoughts and notions in a confusing mixture of Japanese and French  and his stomach gurgling from hunger.

His supervisor was running late for their meeting this afternoon and once they were done discussing his thesis it’d already gone dark outside. Then Tooru had called – again, because Suga’s life is just so predictable – to ask if he could get some stuff from the nearest pharmacy. Easier said than done considering the nearest pharmacy is on the opposite side of campus from where they live and it’s always really busy and Suga had to stand in line with a packet of condoms he knows he won’t even get to see again, let alone use, in his hands for what felt like an eternity. And in all this all Suga has eaten on this marvelous day is a sad, sad sandwich gobbled down between classes.

So Suga is hungry. He is hungry and tired and frustrated and all he wants to do now is eat, sleep and maybe get fucked too, preferably in this order. The third point on his wishlist though, he knows that won’t be happening tonight. Or tomorrow. Or, really, in a foreseeable future.

He closes the front door behind him and rests heavily on it for a second. As if summoned by his misery, Onyx appears seemingly out of nowhere to rub herself against his legs. Suga bends down and tickles her under her chin. She purrs in appreciation.

“Hello, mon petit chou.”

He toes off his shoes, ‘’gracefully’’ jumps over the puddle near the entrance – _stupid roof leaking,_ _stupid shit-ass house_ – and drops his coat and the sad remains of his bag on a chair.

The kitchen is quiet, sparkly clean, no trace of recent food-making activity to be found anywhere. He got home just in time to _order_ dinner, then. He snatches the menus of their favourite take-away places and mentally prepares himself for the arduous choice he will have to make: indian or mexican. He doesn’t even bother checking the fridge to cook something himself, he is too tired and he sucks at it anyway, or at least that’s what Tooru always says. Suga blames it entirely on Tooru’s inability to handle spices, the guy starts tearing up at the simple smell of curry.

He is on his way to his room, menus in hand and cat in tow, when he spots a head of artfully messy brown hair resting on the back of the couch. He walks over and, sure enough, Tooru fell asleep while watching volleyball matches on his computer.

The video is still playing and Suga immediately recognizes the white and purple uniforms of Shiratorizawa. He presses ‘stop’ just as Ushiwaka is about to spike, his mouth set in a terrifying, determined scowl.

Suga carefully puts the laptop away before it slips off of Tooru’s lap and goes to sit next to him. Their couch is tiny, barely big enough for three normal-sized person, but when your flatmates are Oikawa Tooru and Aone Takanobu you either run to claim a spot or you’ll find yourself sitting on the floor. Now that it’s just him and Oikawa though it’s perfect, there’s even enough room for Suga to bend his legs and rest his feet snugly in the crook of the armrest.

“Kou-chan…?” Tooru murmurs, his eyes still closed.

Suga hums and rests his cheek on Tooru’s shoulder. He is so tired.

“Bad day?” Tooru asks, as if he doesn’t know the answer already.

“Worse. My bag broke. Didn’t just tear or rip, no it literally broke on me.”

Tooru raises a hand and pats his shoulder unsympathetically. He’s always hated that bag with a passion, the tasteless jerk. Tried to dump it a couple of times too. Suga already has an insult on his lips when his stomach lets itself known with a loud rumble. Tooru opens one eye to fix him with an amused look and snorts.

Suga crosses his arms on his stomach as a blush eats his face. “You didn’t cook,” he says, accusing and defensive at the same time.

“I didn’t. Do you think you can wait till Tacchan comes back from the gym? Because i’m telling you there’s literally nothing left in the kitchen and i only allow people to eat a very specific part of me.”

Suga elbows him the gut and moves away from him, on the far end of the couch. “First of all, gross. Second of all, i doubt you’d taste any good anyway-”

“Hey!”

“ _Third_ of all, you did nothing all day. The only commitment _you_ had was volleyball practice, why the hell didn’t you go grocery shopping?”

In the seven years they’ve known each other Tooru has learned not to mess with Suga when he’s had a bad day and now, under Suga’s glare, he squirms and fails to find his usual wit to come up with an acceptable response.

There _is_  no acceptable response, as far as Suga is concerned. His stomach is going to start eating itself soon if someone doesn’t feed him, he just knows it.

“W-well Kou-chan, you see, Iwa-chan came by and…”

Suga purses his lips in a scowl and Tooru wisely decides to shut up. First good thing he’s done today.

Then the front door opens and Takanobu walks in holding a paper bag with the name of their favourite italian place on the front and looking as if he were an angel sent from the gods themselves.

“Taka!”

In four steps – more like bounces – Suga is on him. He reverently puts the bag on the table and hugs Aone tight. He is so grateful and hungry he might actually start weeping in relief. His stomach won’t have to eat itself.

“You are the light of my life, have i ever told you that, Taka?”

Aone’s mouth twitches upward and he pets Suga’s hair comfortingly. “You tell me at least three times a week, Suga-san.”

“I always mean it. And drop the ‘-san’ Taka, seriously.”

They eat fast, well Suga eats fast – too fast if the mildly disgusted looks Tooru is throwing his way are any indication – and between a mouthful of pasta and the other Suga recounts his lovely talk with the receptionist. Tooru has _a_ _lot_ to say about it too.

“It should be the university’s responsibility, this house belongs to them!”

“That’s what i said too, but since we were the ones who ‘’damaged’’ it, repairs are on us too.”

Aone shakes his head and cuts the steak with a little too much force than necessary.

“Nobody damaged anything here,” Tooru keeps saying, his voice rising with his temper, “it’s the damn pipes that are so old even the barest touch threatens to make them fall to pieces.”

Onyx jumps on the table and starts sniffing around in the empty take-away boxes. They all ignore her.

“Yeah, Tooru , _I_ know. I said it all, i said it was the university’s own fault for never bothering to check beyond the external state of the boarding houses – because, let’s say it, it’s not like ours is in much worse shape than the others – but they insisted on saying we need to pay for it.”

They stay quiet for a while, all lost in thoughts. They can’t exactly start a case while their bathroom is out to become a pond and the university can keep arguing they were the ones who did the damage as they have no proof of the contrary. So the quickest solution is to simply pay. The quickest but hardly the fairest or most simple.

Truth is, since Suga lost his job at the library last month they’ve all been cutting down on food a lot and still barely making it for rent, even split for three the cost of the repairments will take a toll on their finances. Tooru and Takanobu haven’t said anything to him so far, knowing he _is_ looking for a new job, has started looking since he was fired, and he is grateful for them and their discretion but this situation is not something that can be ignored any longer.

He has to find a new job, and soon.

Suga opens his mouth to speak but Tooru interrupts him with uncanny timing.

“I’ll ask my parents to send me some money this week,” he says with a tone that sounds too casual to be genuine.

_To cover your part_ , he doesn’t say but it still hangs in the air between them.

“It’s not a big deal,” he adds instead and it’s meant to be reassuring, Suga knows this, but all it does is make him feel two inches tall.

It’s true, it wouldn’t be a big deal for Tooru’s parents. They are very well-off and they never seem to have a problem spending their small fortune. From the way they materially spoil their son you would think they’d be overcompensating or something, but they are two of the most genuinely loving, caring parents Suga has ever met. So it wouldn’t be a big deal for them, it wouldn’t be a big deal for Tooru. But it would be for Suga.

His cheeks redden again, this time in indignation - or maybe it’s shame, he is not sure, - and he squares his shoulders to help his words come out more firm. “Thank you, Tooru, but you know that’s not a solution.”

He cringes when he hears his own voice shake and he clears his throat to cover it. “I think i might still have some savings hidden somewhere in my room. I’ll check later and if not i’ll ask _my_ _father_ for some money.”

“Oh, come on Koushi, there is no need to bother Sugawara-san for this. Besides, you just lost your job, let me help-”

“But you _can’t_ ,” Suga hisses, and anger flares bright in his eyes, “You can’t help, Takanobu can’t help because you are both just as broke as me!”

Tooru stays quiet for a while, his mouth open wide with surprise. This is not something Suga does often, getting angry, fighting. He talks back, sure, he gets plenty annoyed but he’s never been a person who gets into conflicts, he always tries to find a way to clear things up _before_ they get to such a point. This time, though, this time he didn’t, he didn’t speak up, he didn’t offer any explanations. He was too angry, he was too ashamed. And here’s where his silence got him.

Takanobu sits quietly between them, a crease on his brow, his expression tight. Suga hates that they – he - dragged him into this.

Tooru makes to speak again.

“Oikawa-san…” Takanobu says with warning in his eyes.

Tooru ignores him. “Yes, ok, _we_ can’t help but my parents can. Seriously Koushi what are we even talking about? 24000 yen? It’s nothing, they won’t even blink when i ask them-”

Suga’s hands curl into fists in his lap but even like this he can see them shaking. “You’re right, they won’t, because you are not going to ask them!”

“Oh come on, will you stop with all this pride?”

The dam breaks.

“You, more than anyone, should know a thing or two about _pride_ ,” Suga says, he spits those words out even though Tooru, rich kid coming from a rich family Tooru, has never understood _this_ kind of pride, will probably never understand it. And why should he?

Under the weight of it, the weight of _Suga’s_ pride, Tooru lowers his eyes.

Suga does too, after a while, and he’s surprised to find his breath still so laboured. He sits down – when did he stand up? – leaning heavily on the back of the chair. He feels weird, out of sorts, incredibly light and overwhelmingly heavy at the same time.

He is not used to this, he is not used to fighting Tooru.

He takes a shallow breath and only when he’s sure, only when he’s steady he keeps going. “Your parents would never let me pay them back, Tooru. You know they wouldn’t, and you should also know, considering how long we’ve been friends, that i would feel terrible if i didn’t.”

“If you were in my position you would feel the same way. It’s not insignificant, my pride,” Suga continues, and Tooru flinches. At this Suga’s tone, like his eyes, finally softens “and i know that, unlike you, i’m here on a scholarship but i can take care of myself. _My_ _father_ can take care of me, and he can take care of this, even though he doesn’t drown in money.”

Suga stands up and starts collecting the dishes to wash them. “I’ll keep looking for a job tomorrow,” he promises, then he says no more.

There’s nothing left to say.

Tooru and Takanobu follow his example and they all start tidying the kitchen in silence.

 

 

*

 

The next morning Suga wakes up firm in his resolve.

He sends out his CV, takes at least three different lines finding himself in parts of the city he hadn’t even known existed and meets with as many people as his schedule will allow. He learns pretty quickly when he has to sport his understanding ‘i get that i’m not the person you’re looking for and i accept it’ smile. By the fourth day his cheeks have started hurting for the effort.

“You’re too qualified for this job, kid, i’m sure many companies are just waiting for you to sweep them off their feet.”

“We are looking for someone with a little more experience…”

Various alternatives to the always comforting ‘’it’s not you, it’s me…and my company’’.

And of course his personal favourite: “I don’t think you’d fit in well with the team.”

“What does that even _mean_?” he asks Onyx that night.

It’s nothing but rhetoric, he knows exactly what those words mean. He’s been hearing them pretty much his whole life.

Onyx offers no answers but she jumps from her perch on Tooru’s coat to curl on his lap and he appreciates the gesture all the same.

As soon as the front door opens he escapes to his room with Onyx in his arms. He hasn’t even gotten to the bed when Tooru’s shriek reaches his ears.

“I picked up this coat from the dry cleaner yesterday!”

Heavy steps resound down the hallway to stop in front of Suga’s door and without even knocking Tooru comes in.

“Do come in, Tooru. Suit yourself, it’s not like i’m entitled to my privac-”

“Where is she? Where is that uncouth beast?”

Suga shrugs and covers himself up with the sheets. Under his oversized sweatshirt – which may or may not have belonged to Takanobu once upon a time - Onyx has started purring.

Tooru raises an eyebrow and comes to lie on the bed next to him.

“Hand her over to me, Kou-chan, and i promise no blood will be spilled.”

Suga snorts. “Please, i could kick your ass in my sleep, Oikawa. Besides, what makes you think i know where she is?”

Tooru looks pointedly down. “Your stomach is wiggling, Sugawara.”

Oh, well, you can’t say Suga didn’t try his best.

“Don’t hurt her,” is all he can yell as Tooru takes Onyx away.

“I have no intention to, i just mean to have some words with her,” then he stops to take something out of his bag. “I got the newspaper,” he says, throws it at Suga and gets out, leaving the door open as usual.

Suga sends out a prayer for Onyx and goes to the job advertisements page.

“I’m in need of a specialized nurse to take care of my-”

No.

“Masseuse/masseur needed-”

Not so much.

“Pole dancer-”

_Yeah, i doubt anybody would pay to see me do that._

He’s almost at the bottom of the page and fastly losing hope when he sees it. A chance in sober Times New Roman.

 

**Nanny Required**

I am looking for a nanny to look after my 8 years old daughter and 4 years old son Monday to Friday from 14:00 to 19:00. They must be a caring, energetic person by nature, well-educated and reliable. Experience working with children and a first aid qualification are required. I’m willing to pay-

 

Suga looks down at the salary and before he knows it he’s already searching for his phone.

Sawamura Daichi-san answers almost immediately and for a moment Suga is caught off guard at how attractive the man’s voice is.

“Hello?”

“Yes, um, hi. I’m calling about your ad for a nanny. My name is Sugawara Koushi…”

 

 

*

 

Sawamura Daichi-san set their meeting for Tuesday at 12:30 sharp. He gracefully agreed to come down to Meiji as soon as he found out Suga is a student, saving him from yet another hellish train ride to the city during lunch hour, and even anticipated a business commitment to accommodate Suga’s schedule.

All this regard has only been making Suga feel even more nervous about the whole thing and now that it’s Tuesday and he’s supposed to meet Sawamura-san in exactly – he checks his phone - thirty-eight minutes he is, well, he is nervous. Just a little.

“Did a bomb just go off in here?”

Tooru comes in uninvited – as usual - and picks up a couple of t-shirts Suga had carelessly thrown on the floor in his quest for a button-down that would make him look like a professional and not like a rumpled high schooler. Curse his youthful features.

He holds a white shirt up for Tooru to examine.

“Boring,” is the laconic answer.

A similar destiny befalls a black shirt, a grey shirt and a mint one. Suga is ready to throw Tooru out and go to the meeting with Sawamura-san wearing his shrimp sheets like a Roman toga when Tooru all but pushes him aside and starts looking around himself.

After a short while he re-emerges from the pile of clothes he’d disappeared in with a lavender shirt in hand and a smug grin on his face.

“Try this one on.”

It’s admittedly very nice, a shock cosidering Tooru’s appalling fashion sense, and it fits Suga like a glove. “You bought this for me a while ago, didn’t you?”

“Mmm, Iwa-chan helped me pick.”

Well, that explains it.

“Hey!”

Oops, he said that out loud.

He smiles brilliantly at Tooru, who snorts, and tries to fix his hair. Tries being the keyword here.

The smile melts off his face as he catches sight of his reflection in the mirror. He looks like a rumpled, fluffy-haired high schooler wearing a nice shirt.

“What if he doesn’t like me?” he asks in a soft voice.

As soon as the words leave his lips he wishes he hadn’t said them.

Tooru shrugs and straightens Suga’s collar. “Then you keep looking. This city can’t possibly be made up only of people with no good sense or taste.”

Their eyes meet in the mirror and Tooru winks at him.

“Right?”

“Right”

And with a suggestive “Go get ‘em, tiger” Tooru metaphorically shoves him out of the house.

 

Suga gets to the cafè three whole minutes early. He checks himself in the window, tucks his bangs behind his ear only to see them fall to frame his face again – he really needs to get a haircut – and nods to himself, attempting to sport some self-assuredness.

It’s easy to spot Sawamura-san among the small, chirpy crowd of people animating the cafè, the man sticks out like a sore thumb between all the sloppily dressed uni students and stereotypically tweed-clad professors with his crispy, expensive-looking suit and the serious crease of his brow.

That’s hardly the only reason why he stands out so much though. Suga stops dead in his tracks for a moment, stunned, and his heart actually _dares_ skip a beat. Like he’s in some sort of romance novel, or in a fanfiction. But boy if that’s not the most handsome man Suga’s ever laid eyes on.

Somebody bumps into Suga and it’s only then that he realizes he’s been blocking the door to stare at who he hopes will be his new employer. Sawamura-san turns to look at him and Suga lowers his eyes as a stupid blush spreads on his face. He apologizes to the guys waiting impatiently behind him and makes his way inside.

Sawamura-san jumps to his feet to greet him and Suga makes a valiant effort not to notice the way the perfectly tailored shirt hugs his broad chest. He fails.

“Sugawara-san i presume…”

Suga nods and they shake hands. Sawamura-san’s hold is firm but not overbearing and his hands are calloused like those of an athlete, strong and incredibly warm. A shiver runs down Suga’s spine.

They exchange platitudes and vague comments about the weather and suddenly it’s weird, awakward in a way Suga can’t explain but that reminds him of the tense atmosphere at the start of a blind date. It’s not that different, he supposes, but while he knows why _he_ is acting the way he is - hot people always leave him a little adrift - the reason behind Sawamura-san’s long pauses and uncertainty escapes him.

“Nice day, uh? Warm…”

“Yeah, it is nice.”

It’s kind of endearing, to be honest.

“So did you see the…um, the state of the roads today? The traffic is absurd…”

“I, um, i walked here, Sawamura-san.”

“Oh…”

At the embarrassed, lost expression Sawamura-san gives him a grin starts growing on Suga’s lips and soon it turns into laughter. Sawamura-san is left speechless for a moment then he cracks a smile too and rubs the back of his neck self-consciously.

“I’m sorry, Sugawara-san,” he says as they are trying to recompose themselves, “i’m used to directing interviews for my firm, but in those cases i _know_ what to ask…”

Suga waves him off with a flick of his wrist and hands him his résumé. “Well, you could start by taking a look at this. Just a thought…”

He throws a cheeky smile Sawamura-san’s way and the man’s eyes twinkle with amusement. His gaze lingers on Suga’s face for a moment too long, and Suga’s cheeks heat up.

“That’s a good idea.”

He’s just about to open the folder when a small piece of paper flies down near his feet. Suga frowns, confused, then as Sawamura-san leans down to pick it up he remembers.

Nine am Intercultural Studies class. Guy with unexplicable red hair always sitting two rows ahead of him.

_Oh please no, not this._

But of course there it is, in Sawamura-san’s hand, a note that says: _Call me sometimes_

And then a very male name – Satori – and a string of numbers.

For a moment Sawamura-san just frowns and reads it again, then he looks up at Suga, just a glance as understanding dawns on him. Suga’s heart skips a beat and he bites the inside of his cheek to keep his expression neutral. Meanwhile his brain is screaming all kinds of insults at him.

_Well, this ship has sailed_ , is the only clear thought that echoes through his mind. There is absolutely no way he is going to get the job now, his previous boss had fired him after seeing him kiss a guy at a restaurant, what are the chances that this man will allow someone like him look after his _children_?

Close to none, Suga reckons, but fuck him if he’s going to let any of his disappointment show.

He raises his chin and doesn’t look away from Sawamura-san’s eyes.

“I’m sorry, i don’t know how that got between my files…” he says. Uncaring of his wish to keep his cool his voice cracks before he can finish the sentence. Sawamura-san hands him the piece of paper with a curious expression on his face.

“I’m here to see if you have the qualities to care for my children, Sugawara-san. Not to pass judgement regarding your personal life.”

He sounds honest, not rigid or dismissive as an uncomfortable person would, and Suga is left blinking stupidly in surprise.

_Oh. That’s new._

It takes a second for Sawamura-san’s words to really sink in but then, when they do, the line of Suga’s shoulders drops and a relieved sigh leaves his lips.

Sawamura-san must hear it because he offers a reassuring half-smile before finally starting to inspect his credentials. Suga decides to order a chai tea latte while he waits and he waves at the waiter passing by to gethis attention. His hands are still shaking subtly from nerves and he takes advantage of the silence to look around himself.

He looks at the tin bucket chandelier above him, at the wooden crates used as vases for potherbs and spring flowers, the mismatched tables. It’s a charming place, he’ll have to come back here with Tooru and Taka sometimes, and the easy atmosphere makes his still overactive heart slow down its race. Just a little.

 In the end though, his eyes fall back to Sawamura-san’s face as if drawn in from an invisible pull and this time Suga just…lets them.

The man really is handsome, and young too, Suga notes. From this close he doesn’t look a day over thirty-five, the lines on his face are few and shallow except for those around his eyes. Laughter lines. He must smile often in his life, at his children most likely. He has a few gray hair here and there, and a hint of stubble on the strong line of his jaw. He mustn’t have paid too much attention when he was shaving this morning. Suga’s gaze falters, stops, and if his eyes had hands he knows they would be reaching out to caress that spot, or any spot really.

Thank goodness they don’t, _thank goodness_. Now if only he could bring himself to look away…

Of course Sawamura-san picks this exact moment to raise his eyes from the papers and Suga hurriedly takes a sip of his latte to give himself something to do that is _not_ dying of embarrassment.

_The guy already knows you’re not straight, don’t give away the fact that you have the hots for him too._

He clears his throat.

“So…” he prompts as Sawamura-san stares intently at him.

“So, i’m both impressed and confused,” is what Sawamura-san says. “You are certainly well-educated, graduated top of your classes at a top university, fluent in…was it three? yes, three languages, scored an internship at one of the most well-respected publishing houses, and you’re about to get your master as well. It’s all very impressive.”

Suga lowers his head in thanks and braces himself for the ‘but’ he can already hear in Sawamura-san’s voice.

“But…” – _there_ _it_ _is_ – “i don’t understand why, with your credentials, you would be interested in working as a nanny.”

_Oh._

Suga fidgets with his mug, his eyes fixed on the little cream left inside, and tries to find a way not to make this sound too bad. “I need the money, here’s all. As you know, i’m a student and neither this university nor this city are cheap…”

He attempts a casual shrug but his shoulders feel too heavy to carry it through. “I saw your ad and thought ‘why not’. And i do like children,” he hurries to say, “i wouldn’t have called if i didn’t, and i have experience with them.”

“Yes i saw the recommendation letters, those parents sure had a lot of nice things to say about you.”

Sawamura-san leans toward him and there is a confidence in that simple gesture that Suga finds mesmerizing. “But that’s not really the answer i was expecting.”

“Maybe not but it’s an honest one,” Suga replies without missing a beat, “for _your_ part, i don’t think you asked the question you wanted an answer to in the first place.”

And Sawamura-san smirks, amused. “Really? So what’s the question you think i wanted to ask?”

Suga crosses his arms on the table and leans toward him too. His entire body is tingling with tension, but it’s not a bad feeling. It’s not a bad feeling at all. “The ever-standard ‘why should i hire you instead of any of the other candidates i’ve been hearing from?’”

Sawamura-san hums. “And your answer to that question would be…?”

Suga doesn’t know. He has no clue what would set him apart from all the other aspiring nannies, except maybe that he really fucking needs this job or he risks not to have a roof under his head anymore because his house will have become a pond, but then he remembers the ad and Tooru’s words echo in his head.

_Go get ‘em, tiger._

“Because i’m everything you’re looking for,” he says at last, and a flush burns his cheeks but his voice is steady.

Sawamura-san just stares at him for a second looking absolutely flabbergasted, his dark eyes wide and his jaw slack with shock, then he starts laughing. He throws his head back and just laughs and laughs. He has a nice laughter, deep as his voice and honest, his whole body is shaking with it.

“Now that’s a bold statement,” he comments at last but he sounds pleased.

Suga wishes he had the confidence to call it for what it seems: intrigued, but apparently it took all the self-assurance he possesses to give an answer like that because now even simply thinking about that word is making Suga want to hide his face in his hands.

He is stopped by a waitress asking them if they would like anything else and once she leaves Sawamura-san finally seems to notice how close they’ve been leaning into each other. He moves away with an embarrassed cough and fiddles with Suga’s papers again.

“I need to ask you a couple more questions, Sugawara-san…”

“Of course, but call me Suga please. Sugawara-san is my father.”

A strange expression crosses Sawamura-san’s face, as if he is trying to place or recall something. Finally he gives a light chuckle.

“And i thought she’d made you up,” he says cryptically, “another person as obsessed with shrimps as she is, i honestly thought…”

He shakes his head, an incredulous smile on his lips, and Suga knows he must be missing something. Something hilarious, apparently, but he can’t figure out what.

“I haven’t talked to you about my children yet,” Sawamura-san continues, uncaring of the giant question mark floating above Suga’s head. He takes two pictures out of his wallet and hands them to Suga.

One is a picture of a dark-haired boy with beautiful black eyes and a light scowl on his face. “That’s my son, Kaede,” Sawamura-san says.

The other is of a girl, older than the boy, with long, black hair, freckles on her nose and a missing tooth in the fr- _oh_.

“And this is my daughter-”

“Ayame-chan!”

 

They arrange for Suga to meet the kids the next day, Sawamura-san calls it a free trial day, and then after talking to his children Sawamura-san will decide whether or not to hire Suga. Suga can only accept and keep the euphoria to himself. He knows it’s too soon to celebrate but getting to meet the kids already feels like a victory in itself.

It’s a chance. He’s been given a chance and he’ll grab onto it.

He and Sawamura-san part with a handshake that seems to last a little too long and leaves Suga more than a little breathless.

As soon as Sawamura-san turns the corner, out of Suga’s sight, Suga checks his phone. There is a new message from Tooru.

**From: bane of my existence**

how did it go???

Suga replies with a simple: i’m so screwed.


	2. Enjoy The Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suga meets the son, we meet new (old) people, and more about our heroes is revealed.

_I’m everything you’re looking for._

Daichi puts the Kawahara case file away with a sigh and squeezes his eyes shut as Sugawara-san’s blushing face takes up space in his mind.

Too much space.

By now he should have already gone to pick up Kaede from kindergarten. Daichi makes to reach out for his phone then stops himself halfway. He’d promised he wouldn’t hover over the guy and let him do his job in peace. He’d promised this, to himself and most importantly to his mother when she’d called to hear how his quest for a nanny was going, and this is exactly what he’ll do.

He gets back to the file.

‘Kawahara Shintarou-san claims it had been his wife’s idea to sign a prenuptial agreement however the lawyer he’d hired at the time contests-’

_Oh, screw it._

The phone is in his hand before he can even register moving. Sugawara-san answers on the second ring, sounding perfectly calm if not a little amused.

“Hello there, Sawamura-san. You lasted thirty-six whole minutes!”

This guy has known him for less than twenty-four hours and already feels like he can tease him. That’s…rather unprofessional, inappropriate even.

A smile makes its way on Daichi’s lips, unbidden.

“I just wanted to make sure you’d picked Kaede up on time, Sugawara-san.”

It’s a perfectly logical explanation, a perfectly logical concern. Not that Kaede’s teachers would ever leave him alone outside in case someone failed to show to pick him up but still, it’s Daichi’s job as a parent to worry about absolutely everything that concerns his children.

“It’s alright, Sawamura-san. Kaede-kun is here with me if you want to talk to him, we’ve just gotten home.”

There is a brief silence on the other side of the line then a small voice says “Hi, daddy” and Daichi lets out a breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding. Hearing his son speak always has that effect on him.

“Hey, kiddo. Is everything going alright?”

“Yes”

“Did you have fun at school today?”

An even smaller “Yes”

Daichi knows it’s better not to push. Kaede is fine talking to his family, he is by no means a chatterbox but he talks, it’s other people that he has trouble opening up to. Sugawara-san being near him and listening is clearly making him shy. Daichi asks him to pass the phone to Sugawara-san again.

The talk is brief, Daichi repeats the things he’s already said half a dozen times both yesterday and this morning and Sugawara-san lets him, doesn’t interrupt him once and if he is exasperated by Daichi’s pedantry and endless reminders it doesn’t show in his words. In the soft, airy quality of his voice.

“And remember that Ayame is allergic to peanuts so no-”

“Daichi-san”

Ennoshita’s voice calls from the door and Daichi curses. He’d completely forgotten about the meeting. After that fire scare on the eleventh floor a couple of weeks ago, Shimizu-san decided to increase security and discuss safety measures and procedures and these meetings, she made very clear, are mandatory for all employees.

Basically, he can’t escape this.

He hungs up with an apology that Sugawara-san is quick to brush off and follows his assistant outside the office and down the hallway. Sugawara-san was probably all too glad to end that conversation, Daichi muses. He’d done exactly what his mother had told him not to do: hover. She is going to _lecture_ him next time he calls her, he won’t even have to admit his faults, she’ll just know somehow. She always knows.

He is so not looking forward to that conversation. Closing on thirty-four and still afraid of his mother, he’s starting to think he’ll never outgrow this.

The elevator pings and stops on their floor and Daichi and Ennoshita hurry inside.

“Hey, Daichi-san!”

Daichi turns around and gives Tanaka a brief nod. Somewhere behind him Nishinoya’s voice greets him too, louder than necessary as per usual, and Ennoshita gives a long-suffering sigh.

Tanaka squeezes in between the small crowd of people and goes to stand by Daichi’s side. He looks weird, nervous, he keeps trying to fix his security uniform, his perfectly straight tie. Now that they are so close Daichi is pretty sure the guy’s wearing cologne as well. It’s probably all a not-so-subtle way to impress Shimizu-san.

_Good luck with that, my friend…_

“How did it go yesterday? You said you had to meet someone for the nanny thing…” Tanaka asks in a low voice.

Daichi nods again. “Yeah, i did. It went pretty well, i think. He is with the kids now, i wanted to see if he clicked with them before hiring him…”

“Wait, he?”

“Yeah, it’s a guy. Why?”

Tanaka shrugs, “Nothing, it’s just unusual, that’s all. So how is he?”

_Weird_ , is the first word Daichi’s brain supplies him with. Throughout their first meeting Sugawara-san had been a constant fluctuating of insicure and bold, of fierce gazes and endearing blushes. Daichi couldn’t even begin to try to figure him out. Normally this would unsettle him, and in a way it still does, but Sugawara-san emanates a kindness that Daichi had found impossible to dismiss. His smile, the look in his eyes, his voice, everything about him speaks of kindness.

“He seems like a good guy,” is all Daichi says out loud.

Tanaka gives him a warm grin, “That’s what matters the most in the end, isn’t it?”

Said by Tanaka, who is easily one of the best people Daichi has ever known, it has the amazing power to reassure Daichi, just a little. He smiles back.

“Yeah, i suppose it is”

Nishinoya suddenly makes his presence known again and lands a sharp dab on Daichi’s back.

“What the hell-”

“But _how_ is he?” he asks Daichi with a suggestive raise of his eyebrows.

Daichi just stares at him, a blank, uncomprehending look in his eyes, until Nishinoya is forced to elaborate.

“Is he hot?”

Warmth spreads, unseemly, from Daichi’s neck and he reaches out to smack Nishinoya behind the head. “He could be my children’s nanny, Noya!” he hisses.

“Not for you, Daichi-san! I meant in general…or for me. For Ryuu maybe, he hasn’t gotten laid in so long it’s almost sad-”

“Noya-san!”

Blessedly – for Nishinoya, and for Daichi’s mental health alike - the elevator reaches their floor. As soon as the doors open Daichi steps out and away from Nishinoya as fast as he can, Ennoshita still in tow. Noya never fails to ask questions like this, after almost five years spent working somewhat close together Daichi shouldn’t be surprised  anymore, let alone feel irritated by it. They are harmless questions, asked between friends, that’s all. But maybe – apparently – it’s Daichi who is getting too old for them.

_Is he hot?_

Daichi shakes his head briefly. The guy is almost ten years younger than he is, and looks even younger. He is cute, sure, but hardly worth the mess that would follow if he and Daichi were to become involved in any way that’s not professional. Besides, he already has-

“Um, Daichi-san, it’s here…” Ennoshita stops him with a hand on his shoulder and Daichi realizes that in his haste to get away from his thoughts he’d almost walked past the conference room where the meeting is taking place.

“Yes, of course,” Daichi clears his throat and enters the room first to avoid Ennoshita’s eyes.

He bows to Shimizu-san, who nods at him in return, and looks around for an empty seat. A head of auburn hair immediately attracts his attention and he makes his way to Mai.

She greets him with a lovely smile and pats the seat she’d saved for him. Her hand falls gently on his arm as he sits near her. It’s nice, and most importantly it’s enough to make Daichi forget his annoyance.

Shimizu-san clears her throat and the room falls quiet.

 

*

 

 

Being a parent, they say, is the hardest job of all. If that’s true then being a nanny comes in second, right?

Suga stares at his phone, his head still spinning from the endless – pointless - reminders Sawamura-san just managed to throw at him in less than a minute and a half, and sighs deep from his chest.

“Your father sure is a busy man, uh?” he tells Kaede, who simply nods at him with a blank look in his eyes.

It’s a victory of sorts, considering that Kaede-kun has not spoken a single word to him all day - not counting the whispered ‘’hello’’ of this morning when Sawamura-san had first introduced him to the kids. Well, to Kaede at least, Ayame-chan remembered him all too well, if the argument she had with her father about how he needs to ‘’hire Suga-san immediately, like yesterday’’ was any clue.

But it seems that for winning the daughter over so quickly he’ll have to work twice as hard to even get the son to smile. That’s fine by him, Suga is no stranger to hard work, never has been. Besides, he’s been told many times he’s very lovable, so he has faith in his abilities. Whatever his abilities are.

“Are you hungry, Kaede-kun?” he asks.

Silence, then a loud grumbling stomach answers for him. It’s his own but that hardly matters.

He and Kaede make their way to the kitchen and Suga…stops.

When he first came by this morning Sawamura-san had given him a brief tour of the house and too busy not letting his jaw drop at the size of it, not to mention the tastefulness with which it’s furnitured, Suga hadn’t really thought about asking him important questions like: where do you keep your pots and pans? where is the rice cooker? how is your kitchen counter so clean?

Kaede must notice his hesitation because he starts opening the drawers where the cutlery and table cloths are kept and starts pointing at various cupboards he can’t reach. It’s not much but it’s enough to make Suga return to his senses.

“Right, so…onigiri or sandwiches?”

Kaede thinks about it for a moment then holds two fingers up.

“Sandwiches it is then.”

They work in silence for a while, Kaede walks around the kitchen to fetch things and dutifully puts them on the counter for Suga to use. It’s all too easy picturing Kaede doing the same for his father before every meal and Suga has to bite back a smile at the cuteness of it all. Until he notices how careful Kaede is not to touch him.

“Do you eat the crust, Kaede-kun?”

Kaede sits on the opposite side of the island once his job as world’s smallest sous-chef is done and follows Suga’s every move with his sharp, black eyes. At Suga’s question he simply nods and rests his chin on his crossed arms.

“Alright, then,” Suga says and keeps talking as he butters the bread, “one of my flatmates doesn’t. Every time he eats a sandwich he makes sure to cut the crust and of course he leaves it on the table, because throwing it away would be too much effort and ants are such great company to have while you eat.”

Suga holds a slice of tomato up and Kaede shakes his head. He continues, “I mean, what’s that about? I understand the crust doesn’t add any special flavor but it doesn’t taste _bad_ so why cut it at all?”

Kaede furrows his brow then shrugs his shoulders helplessly. He seems just as confused by the reasonings behind crust hatred as Suga is, but his expression is more open now, less assessing. Suga can consider himself satisfied for now.

Silence settles between them again as they eat their sandwiches but Suga is not bothered. Kaede seems to like them, he eats slowly but he takes two, then three, and now Suga knows more about him than he could have hoped. Just because he keeps quiet doesn’t mean he is not saying anything at all.

“Your father told me Ayame-chan has volleyball practice now,” another nod, “so we still have some time before we need to go pick her up…”

Suga’s mind works around a list of activities and games he used to play with the kids he babysat years ago but the longer his sentence is left alone, incomplete and hanging in the air, the more Kaede seems to tense.

_He probably doesn’t like games much…_

Suga bites his lip and looks around, hoping to find inspiration in the immaculate of the kitchen. He doesn’t so with a resigned sigh he says “Is there anything you’d like to do?”

Kaede looks at him for a moment, wide-eyed with surprise, then he nods and runs out of the room abruptly. Suga is about to run after him, his heart in his throat, when Kaede comes back with a box in his hands. There is a stash of blank papers and pencils and crayons rolling around, and some watercolors too.

Suga takes the box from him to put it on a chair and starts making space on the counter. There is a smile in Kaede’s eyes now, at the simple prospect of drawing. It’s no hide-and-seek or tag, it’s no good way of bonding but it’s what he wants to do so Suga sits back down and lets him draw in peace.

Once again he finds himself looking around the house, at the hardwood floors and open spaces, the light-colored walls and the flowing curtains. It’s all so beautiful but, and he realizes how stupid this sounds considering he’s known Sawamura-san for less than 24 hours, it doesn’t really feel like the man Suga sat with yesterday. Not at all.

Then his gaze stops on the pictures that cover almost every wall of the house and his stomach twists into a tight knot. Passing by them during the tour he’d just dismissed them as expensive sketches from semi-famous artists but now that he _looks_ at them it’s clear they are a child’s work.

There is nothing on the fridge, it’s as immaculate as the rest of this room, but it’s only because what Kaede draws – _whatever_ _he_ _draws_ \- Sawamura-san has it framed.

There is a drawing of a house with a sloping red roof near the window. A careful portrait of Sawamura-san above the door frame, a family picture next to the wall clock. A tortoise.

There are drawings everywhere, everywhere he looks, he doesn’t know how he missed them. He hides his smile behind a glass of water.

_Now this_ , he catches himself thinking, _this_ _is_ _more like the man he’d met_.

Kaede huffs, an uncharacteristically loud, annoyed sound, and Suga’s attention falls back on him. He is looking for something, clearly, pats the pile of blank papers, lifts his pencil case. There’s already a pout on his face, he mustn’t like having his drawing sessions interrupted by wandering supplies.

Suga holds up a crayon and Kaede shakes his head. That’s not it. It’s not a pencil either, nor a pencil sharpener. Then Suga shows him a small, consumed eraser and Kaede nods. Just like that, the pout is gone. Suga leaves the eraser on the table, close to Kaede, and Kaede looks at him for a moment. Slowly he nods again, once, before looking back down at his drawing and Suga feels very much like he’s just passed a test of some kind.

He carefully leans over to peek at Kaede’s drawing and bites back a smirk. Or at least he tries to.

Kaede is drawing a cat.

“Do you like cats, Kaede-kun?” Suga asks innocently enough.

Kaede nods. Suga takes his phone, the taste of victory already on his tongue, and starts looking through his pictures. It’s not hard to find them, Tooru always makes fun of him for taking more pictures of Onyx than of himself – _“Or of me, Kou-chan. Seriously i’m a much fairer view…”_ – but cat pictures are always a good way to bond or fill a silence and in this case they might just make all the difference. So take that Oikawa.

He hands Kaede the phone and Kaede’s eyes become as wide as saucers. He mutters a small ‘oh’ and a shy smile breaks on his face.

“Her name is Onyx,” Suga says, then lets Kaede bask in the cuteness that is his kitten.

If only he had known he would have used the Onyx card sooner. She has always been a charmer, with her bright yellow eyes and the white spot under her nose that looks so much like a moustache. Whenever Suga brings her back home to Miyagi for the holidays she’s always the star of the party. Now, even through photos, Kaede can’t take his eyes off of her.

Suga takes a gamble then, and prays he’s not overstepping his boundaries.

“I could bring her sometimes if you want to and, most importantly, if your father agrees to it…”

Kaede lights up like a Christmas tree at the idea and that’s when Suga remembers that Sawamura-san hasn’t decided whether to hire him or not yet.

_Well, he better do now…_

 

Kaede is still not done with his drawing by the time they have to go pick Ayame up.

Suga has to tell him to get ready three times before he actually starts putting away his pencils and even then he looks about to argue, an annoyed twist on his lips.

“We need to go. Now.”

The cat trick had worked for a while, the air around them felt easier to breathe but Suga had known it couldn’t last. Kids like Kaede don’t open up just because they found one thing in common to discuss with you, but still it’s a decent start.

Only now he has a promise to keep. Sort of.

“Kaede-kun…” Suga calls again and taps his foot on the floor for good measure.

Kaede crosses his arms on his small chest but the bout of stubborness is short-lived. Suga has to deal with Oikawa Tooru on a daily basis, he is not the kind of guy that can be moved by temper tantrums and whims. Nonplussed, he fixes Kaede with a stern look of his own and the kid is quick to begrudgingly jump down the stool and go grab his jacket.

A wise decision.

They take about twenty minutes to get to Ayame’s school. Kaede leads Suga inside the gate and then to a separate, smaller building near the main that must be the gym and they wait in silence under a greening birch.

With Ayame there it’s easier. She is everything her brother is not, talkative and cheerful, she gives away her smiles as though they’re not for her to keep. As soon as she sees them waiting for her she runs to them to stop only a couple of inches away from headbutting Suga in the stomach. At his greeting she beams.

Suga takes her gym bag and they all make their way back home.

“How did practice go?” he asks and that’s the only thing he manages to say for the next ten minutes.

Ayame talks about volley with an almost manic light in her eyes, one that Suga recognizes all too well. He sees it in Tooru every day, he’s seen it in Ushijima the few times they talked and with a sharp pang in his chest he remembers seeing it in his own eyes too, years ago.

_Too many years ago._

But that was once, that was before.

He listens, carefully. He listens to Ayame recount her day, he listens to the tale of the impossible spike she’d managed to receive, to her complaints on how hard the coach is making the team work and to her less than nice comments about the ace of their team. He listens to it all and he can almost feel it, the smell of Salonpas in the air, the synthetic rubber of the court under his feet. He tries to hide the downturned edge of his smile behind his bangs.

His eyes fall on Kaede walking by his other side and there is a weird expression on his face, his attentive eyes uncharacteristically downcast. It looks much like the bitterness that’s insinuated itself between Suga’s ribs. It’s a strange sentiment to recognize on a kid this young.

Suga shakes his head and turns his attention back to Ayame.

“And then Chiyo jumped and hit the ball so hard everybody in the gym heard, it was like SMACK! and i got scared for a second but then i got into position like daddy taught me and BAM i received it! It was amazing, my arms are still achy…”

Ayame shows off her arms, still a little pink from practice, like they are war wounds and Suga’s smile turns genuine. He remembers this too, the satisfaction that comes from a work well done, the knowledge you gave it your all.

“I’m sure your father will be so proud,” he says and Ayame’s smile turns so wide it threatens to split her face in halves.

Soon they reach a familiar crossroad and Suga and Ayame share a conspiratorial look.

“Stay close to me,” he tells the kids.

Ayame grabs his arm absentmindedly, as though they’ve done this countless times already, but when Suga turns to look at Kaede, Kaede doesn’t look back at him.

His mind goes back to their time in the kitchen, to the way Kaede had behaved.

_He doesn’t like touching people he doesn’t know._

Suga bites the inside of his cheek in thought then his eyes fall to his satchel.

“Grab the strap of my bag, Kaede-kun.”

After a moment of hesitation Kaede does. He lets go as soon as they’ve reached the other side of the road but he stays close to Suga’s side, much closer than before, for the rest of the walk back.

 

*

 

 

Daichi comes home exhausted, more from worrying all day than from dealing with petty clients who wish to see their former spouse go bankrupt. After years of doing this job he can safely say he’s gotten used to _that_ brand of crazy but the stress of being a parent, that never really disappears.

He leans heavily on the front door and takes a deep breath. He doesn’t hear screaming or other worrying noises coming from the inside but that doesn’t do much to reassure him. In fact silence in this house can be an even more ominous sound.

He blindly looks in his pockets for his keys and resigns himself to another Cold War-like scenario, with Sugawara-san on one end of the room and the kids on the other glaring at him but then…then something wonderful happens.

Through the closed door seeps noise, the most beautiful noise.

Daichi hurries inside to follow the cheers, Ayame’s _laughter_ , and he finds her, Kaede and Sugawara-san all kneeling on the floor and hunched over papers.

“Suga-san that’s cheating!” Ayame says between giggles and Sugawara-san gives her an unapologetic shrug.

“All is fair in love and war, Ayame-chan.”

The door closes behind Daichi with a loud thud and he finds three pair of eyes looking up at him startled. He knows he is smiling and when Ayame and Kaede make a sprint toward him to hug him it turns into a full, goofy grin.

“I’m home,” he says and the kids answer with a muffled ‘’welcome home’’ against his chest .

Sugawara-san gets up but stays where he is, his eyes respectfully downcast as though he doesn’t wish to intrude on this family moment. It’s a sweet thought, considerate.

Daichi squeezes the kids tight, so tight, until they are both laughing and squealing in protest and only then lets them go. They run back to Sugawara-san and his expression from shyly sweet becomes mischievous but Daichi notices it doesn’t lose any of its warmth.

“I’m sorry, you two, but getting up before the time is over means forfeit so…” he says and shrugs again.

Ayame puts her hands on her hips and cries out “That’s not fair!”. Kaede shakes his head so hard his hair gets into his eyes and he holds up his fingers, thumb and forefinger touching to form a ‘0’. Daichi is pretty sure Kaede has no idea what ‘forfeit’ means but this is the most animated he’s seen his son in the company of a stranger so he is not going to question any of this.

He’s too overjoyed to.

Sugawara-san looks up at him and even from the opposite side of the room Daichi can see his eyes sparkle copper and gold.

“Sawamura-san help me out here, if a person leaves before the end of the match it means they’ve given up, right? So it’s their opponent’s win.”

Daichi bites back the laughter bubbling inside his chest and nods solemnly. “That’s right, i’m sorry kids but these are the rules.”

Chaos.

Ayame glares at him and insinuates he and Sugawara-san were somehow in cahoots and had planned for Daichi to arrive just when the last round had begun.

“It was your idea to award 10 points to the winner of the last round!” she stage-whispers, her eyes wide with betrayal. Disappointed, Kaede shakes his head again and goes to stand by his sister as they glare at Sugawara-san together.

It’s so much like the scene Daichi had expected – dreaded - to walk into but galaxies away from it at the same time. There is a smile behind Ayame’s scowl and even Kaede is amused, his small shoulders light and free from the tension he usually feels around other people.

Sugawara-san huffs and mimics Ayame’s pose, hands on his hips and his full mouth pinched in a pout. “How do i know you two didn’t set me up, uh? Maybe one of you called your father while i was distracted and told him to come home and interrupt the game so you could leave in the middle of it and then accuse me of cheating!”

The kids stare at him dumbfounded, mouths agape at the diabolical twisting their own words were subjected to then their eyes turn to Daichi, pleading.

Daichi raises his hands in a pacifying gesture and when he searches for Sugawara-san’s eyes he finds the man’s shoulders shaking with poorly-repressed laughter.

At the sight of him Daichi has to swallow down a chuckle of his own. He fixes his children with a stern look and as soon as he’s sure his voice won’t crack in amusement he says “Don’t drag me into this, kids. You both know Sugawara-san didn’t call me, so stop accusing him and take your defeat with dignity.”

Ayame and Kaede both bow their heads and murmur an apology Sugawara-san is quick to accept, and he does it with a smile so beautiful it has Ayame blushing. Daichi, too, can’t really help but stare for a moment.

He tells the kids to tidy up and put away the drawing supplies and with a nod he invites Sugawara-san to follow him to the kitchen. Before they go Ayame calls him and Daichi finds her staring at him with a pleading look in her eyes. He winks at her.

Sugawara-san seems nervous now.

Daichi knows he can be intimidating at times – Noya has even used the word ‘terrifying’ at times – so he leans on the kitchen counter and gives Sugawara-san what he hopes is his best reassuring smile.

“How did it go?” is the first thing he asks. A generic question, easy.

Sugawara-san stops playing with his fingers. “I think it went well, but it’s not for me to say,” and he gestures to the children whispering in the other room.

Daichi looks at him and notices the messy hair, the pink spot on his shirt – probably crayon – and the dust on his dark jeans. He really spent time with the children, not just looking after them but _with_ them.

“What did you do with Kaede? Before picking Ayame up, i mean.”

Sugawara-san avoids his eyes again and bites his lip. “He wanted to draw so i let him…”

“Alright”

“I know it’s not exactly a social activity but i didn’t think he’d be up for games and he looked tense so i thought it best to let him do something he likes rather than forcing him-” he is rambling now.

Daichi raises a placating hand and he closes his mouth. He is blushing slightly, on his ears and high on his cheeks.

“That over there looked a lot like a game to me, though. What was it, by the way?”

Sugawara-san’s cheeks turn a shade or two darker. “I don’t know really, it came to me as we got home. Alternately we had to browse through Ayame’s animal book while wearing a blindfold and point at an animal without knowing which it was and then we all had to draw it in two minutes. Who finished first, and managed to draw something that actually resembled the animal, won.”

A pause.

“It sounds stupid, put like this…” he concludes with, his voice a whisper.

“It’s as good a game as any,” Daichi says with a grin.

“I thought it’d be a good compromise between a game we all could play together and something Kaede-kun doesn’t mind doing. Doesn’t involve too much talking, or touching, or anything other than drawing really…”

“Well, it sure seems like it worked,” Daichi offers gently and for the first time since this conversation started Sugawara-san seems to relax a little.

It’s startling, that he doesn’t seem to realize how well he did today. But then again he doesn’t have anything to compare this to, no memory of coming back home to miserable children and irritated or helplessly lost nannies stamped in his brain.

Daichi makes his way to Sugawara-san and puts a hand on his shoulder. “I have one more question for you.”

Sugawara-san looks up and nods at him, not quite as tense as before but still guarded. The grin spreads wider across Daichi’s face.

“Can you come back tomorrow?”

It turns out that if you are the actual recipient of Sugawara-san’s smile the beauty of it hits you even harder. The charming crinkle of his eyes, the crease of his nose and… _oh_.

_He_ _has_ _dimples_.

Daichi’s throat feels dry all of a sudden.

The hurried sound of steps reaches his ears and Daichi finds himself face to face with Kaede. For whatever reason he decides it might be better to take a step away from Sugawara-san.

Kaede looks between the two of them, unfazed, then meets Daichi’s eyes and puts his index finger under his nose.

Daichi raises an eyebrow. “A moustache…?”

Sugawara-san tenses and throws a guilty look his way.

“Sawamura-san, how do you feel about cats?” is what he asks.

 

*

 

 

Onyx is the only one there to greet him when he gets back.

Suga lifts her up with a whoop in a pretty accurate re-enactment of the Circle of Life scene and starts rocking her around the room until Onyx has had enough and bites his thumb. It’s a pretty effective way to make him understand he is pushing both his boundaries and her – admittedly limitless - patience. He is grateful she didn’t decide to scratch him instead, her nails are something to be feared.

He puts her down swiftly and pets her on the head in apology.

She follows him as he walks to the kitchen and rubs her face against his calf, mewling softly. Usually she is not this quick to forgive but hunger always beats affront. Hunger beats everything, Suga is a broke college students, he knows this too well.

He fills her bowl with stinky cat food then looks around to find food for himself that is not expired or covered in mold or made by Tooru, which is code for inedible, half-burned, ‘’healthy’’ flavorless crap.

Applying these very strict filters all Suga is left with are two carrots, an onion and a pack of eggs. He decides to leave them be and get a couple of pizzas delivered. It was his turn to go grocery shopping today.

“Maybe pizza will help Tooru and Taka forget about this small detail, what do you say?” he asks Onyx.

She lifts her yellow eyes up and away from her food and fixes him with a long stare.

So that’s a no.

He’ll go first thing in the morning, then.

Dinner is a quiet affair, Onyx jumps on the table a couple of times to try and steal a meatball but apart from that it’s uneventful. Lonely.

Suga keeps throwing glances at the front door but it stays stubbornly close. Tooru is probably with Hajime, since they got back together a couple of months ago Suga hasn’t seen much of him, except for when he comes running back here to escape a fight. And Taka…well, Suga has no idea where he could be. The guy is not exactly the most open person on the planet, especially when it comes to his private life. Suga can only hope his absence has something to do with the adorable Hina-something guy Taka has obviously been crushing on for months.

So it’s just him. Him and Onyx. He pretends the thing doesn’t bother him. He’s gotten quite good at that, if he may say so himself.

He puts the half-eaten pizza away and checks his phone to give himself something to do. There’s a missed call from his father, probably from when Suga was busy with the kids.

“Hey, kiddo” his father answers after only two rings, a smile already in his voice.

“Hey, dad.”

Suga is smiling too. He puts his dad on speakerphone and lets his voice fill the apartment.

“How’s school?”

Always the first question to be asked.

“It’s good,” Suga says, “i told you the professor approved the subject of my thesis and we’ve already gone through the introduction i wrote. He didn’t have too many bad things to say, which i assume is to mean he approved of that too.”

“I’m sure he did, but if he is really the hardass you say he is then he’s probably waiting to see how the rest of it goes before he lands it on the praise.”

There’s a trace of amusement in his words Suga replies to in kind.

“Yeah, you’re probably right. I, for one, can’t wait for that day to come.”

His father laughs and for a while they don’t speak. Suga is used to it, his father was never a man of many words and he likes talking on the phone even less. But it’s fine, more than fine. His father’s silences remind him of home.

Then a weird sound reaches Suga’s ears, as if his father had slapped himself or maybe a table, and he squints at his phone. “Um, dad?”

“I just remembered, how did it go with those kids?”

Suga’s smile returns, twice as bright. “Well, i got the job.”

From the other side of the line his father laughs again, warm and a little rough. “I knew you would, Koushi. They would have been crazy not to hire you!”

And Suga tells him all about his day. He tells him about Kaede, quiet and too observant to be only a 4 years old, hard to approach but so, so sensitive and talented. He talks about Ayame and their first, chance encounter, of how she lights up every room she is in with her smile and tries her best to make up for her brother’s hush with her chatter. Then his father asks about ‘this Sawamura-san guy’ and Suga hesitates for a moment.

“He seems like a good man,” he says at last, “a good father.”

_His hands are warm_ , this he keeps to himself.

His father hums, and if he’s noticed the slow rhythm in Suga’s words he doesn’t mention it. “What about the mother? How is she?”

_The mother…_

Suga closes his eyes for a moment and leans heavily on the back of the couch.

Of course his father would ask that. Anyone would ask that, anyone but Suga.

Suga has to clear his throat twice before he can speak but his voice still comes out a little raspy, uncertain. “They don’t…i have no idea. Neither Sawamura-san nor the kids mentioned her and i…i never asked.”

_I never thought to ask._

That’s his norm, a family without a mother, but it’s not…it’s not _the_ norm. How the heck did he not think to ask?

His father doesn’t reply and this time his silence sits heavy between them. It’s the elephant in the room, too big to ignore. So big it sucks all the air from your lungs and forces you to sit in a corner and watch as it wrecks havoc all around you. Suga’s hand clenches into a fist.

This, this is not the kind of silence he’s missed.

“Dad…”

His father sighs, heavy and deep, and it’s as if his pain – or whatever it is that he is feeling and that he never shares – came from the depths of the earth itself. Maybe it does.

“You did well not to ask. If they didn’t say it means they didn’t want to share.”

_Yeah, i know how that works. All too well._

He doesn’t say. He knows it’s his fault too, he is the one who stopped asking. For fear of hurting his father, for fear of hurting himself.

They say goodbye then, but Suga can’t find it in himself to smile when his father ends the call with his usual “I’m proud of you, Koushi.”

Today it feels empty, a platitude of sorts. His father has been saying it for years, since Suga was old enough to remember and probably for longer still but what if, what if he started right _after_. What if it’s a way to compensate? Maybe he thinks that if he says it often enough, loud enough, Suga will start to believe that he _is_ someone to be proud of. That he’ll stop blaming himself for not being a good enough reason for her to stay.

Suga wishes he could say that he doesn’t without having to lie.

A key turns and the front door falls open.

Suga’s head snaps at the sudden noise, Tooru’s laughter and Hajime’s grumbling bounce against the walls, obnoxiously loud. Suga gets up and walks to his room before they can see him.

He closes his bedroom door behind him and locks it and even through the darkness his eyes fall to his desk, to the few pictures he has framed. He and his dad camping, he and his dad at graduation, he and his dad holding his BA certificate and smiling like a couple of goofs. His nana appears too in a couple of photos but in general it’s just him and his dad. Always has been.

His father was right earlier, if Sawamura-san and Ayame didn’t say anything that means they are not ready. Suga, of all people, should know that. He can only hope…he can only hope it’s not as bad as Suga is picturing it. Those kids don’t deserve the kind of pain he-…they don’t deserve any kind of pain.

He walks to the bed and throws himself on it. The springs squeak. Onyx jumps to sit on his chest and Suga lets out an embarrassing yelp, he hadn’t noticed her following him inside. She seems unbothered by his reaction and when he looks down at her with a curse on his lips she just yawns and noses at his chin.

He can see her eyes glow in the moonlight and he wonders what she is seeing now, how he looks through her eyes. Not good, he guesses.

He sighs and resigns himself to sleep half-dressed. Until she decides to move he will have to stay put, so he sets the alarm and rests his head on the pillow.

Sleep finds him only when the sky has already begun to lighten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it might be a little arrogant to say this seeing as he is my OC but i love Kaede, my small baby bird.  
> And as you can see i don't fuck around when i use the 'slow build' tag. It's so slow, god.
> 
>  
> 
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/JKNo_emi)  
> 


	3. It's a force field

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where we and Suga meet someone new, and Daichi is a lowkey moron.

Suga listens to the weather report every day, mostly because Tooru listens to it every day at breakfast and it’s kind of hard to ignore it, so he should know better than to trust it. Hell, he _knows_ better than to trust it…and yet…

“The guy said it wouldn’t rain until late in the evening! Late in the evening! It’s 2 p.m!” Suga repeats for the fifth time in the span of five minutes.

Kaede flinches at the way his voice rises but one corner of his mouth is still curved upwards in amusement. Ever since the rain started, catching them by surprise on their way home from kindergarten, his eyes have been twinkling with glee.

Maybe he likes to step on puddles. That would explain the way he’d been circling them, a calculating look on his face, while Suga tried to cover him with his jacket.

Well that’s not gonna happen, not on Suga’s watch.

Fortunately they managed to find shelter under the canopy of a flower shop before they could get drenched but since then the light drizzling has become a full-on downpour. The sound of fat raindrops harshly hitting the plastic-coated fabric cover above them is almost deafening.

The wind changes and so does the direction of the rain. Kaede steps closer to Suga and they huddle together - without really touching. Thank goodness it’s April, Suga thinks to himself, the wind is annoying, sure, but at least it’s not cold.

Still, what wouldn’t he give for a nice, warm bath…

“Hey, you two” a thin voice calls out and Suga and Kaede jump. They turn around and see an elegant old lady waving at them from inside the shop.

“Get in here before you get all soaked!” she says.

They don’t need to be told twice.

The lady lies down old newspapers for them to rub their wet shoes on then offers to make some tea. Suga bows in gratitude and after a brief moment of hesitation Kaede imitates him.

“It’s dreadful outside!” the woman comments from the back room, followed by the gentle clinking of ceramics. Now that the sound of rain is muffled by walls and glass Suga notices she has a very evident accent. European for sure, possibly french or belgian.

“Yes, it caught us completely by surprise,” Suga answers as he looks around.

The place is nice, small, the pale lavender walls and the wooden shelves the plants are arranged on remind Suga of his grandma’s house and the earthy smell in the air is nothing short of wonderful. He closes his eyes for a moment and breathes it in, a smile on his face. When opens them again Kaede is looking at him curiously.

“I used to work in a flower shop when i was in high school,” he explains, “didn’t pay much but i loved that job.”

“What’s not to love?” the lady says, walking back to the shop with a tray in hands. “Surrounded by flowers every day, it’s the most beautiful job in the world.”

Suga helps her set it down on the counter and only then he realizes he hasn’t even introduced himself. He bows again and extends his hands. She takes it with a warm smile.

“I’m Sugawara Koushi,” he says and the hand in his suddenly goes slack. The woman stares at him for a moment and her mouth works around words that can’t seem to come out.

“Sorry, just…that’s a lovely name,” she says at last but the new tightness around her eyes betrays her. “I’m Celeste Devaux” she continues and regards him with a piercing look, as though she is waiting for him to have some kind of reaction to that information.

“Yours is a beautiful name, too” is all Suga says. He is not sure what else he _should_ say. Mrs. Devaux’s expression seems to almost fall at his words.

_Maybe she is an actress, or something like that? Someone famous…_

She sure looks the part, with her long, silver hair and piercing blue eyes. The deep lines on her face do little to hide the fine features of her face, Suga has no doubt she must have been a beauty in her youth.

Their eyes meet again as Suga studies her and he realizes she’s been doing the same with him. An awkward silence has now stretched between them and to escape the woman’s intense scrutiny Suga looks around for Kaede.

A sneeze echoes in the small space of the shop, coming from behind a tall shelf. Suga follows it and there finds Kaede, near a small bouquet of mimosas, rubbing his nose with a scowl on his face.

Suga walks to him. “Please tell me that was because of the mimosas and not because you are getting sick…” he whispers, worry seeping through his voice.

He really should have thought to bring an umbrella with him this morning.

Kaede points at the mimosas accusingly but Suga isn’t reassured much. Mrs. Devaux suddenly reappears next to him with an embroidered handkerchief in hand. She gives it to Kaede with a small smile. “Come drink some tea, honey, it’ll do you good.”

“This is Kaede,” Suga tells Mrs. Devaux as they all sit by the counter.

“It’s lovely to meet you, Kaede” she says and doesn’t seem to think much of it when Kaede only gives her a shy nod in reply.

“It’s your name for the _maple_ _tree_ , isn’t it?” she asks Suga, switching to english seamlessly.

Suga nods. “And his sister is named Ayame, written like _iris_ ,” he adds with a fond smile.

Mrs. Devaux stiffens at his words and looks from him to Kaede again, her eyes wide with shock. There’s a tremor in her voice as she asks “You are not…he is not your son, is he?”

She must realize it’s a strange question to ask a complete stranger because she bites her lip nervously as soon as the words leave her mouth. Still Suga can’t help his frown. “No, i’m just his babysitter,” he says slowly.

She lowers her head in apology and for a while they don’t speak. Kaede points at the small plate of biscuits Mrs. Devaux brought with the tea and looks first at her then at Suga.

“Of course you can take them, darling. As many as you want,” Mrs. Devaux says and pushes the plate closer to him.

“Not _too_ many though,” adds Suga with what he hopes is a strict enough tone.

Kaede nods at them both and takes a biscuit in both hands. He eats it in two bites, his cheeks stuffed like those of a hamster. Suga’s eyes soften at the sight and he looks down at his empty tea cup to hide behind his bangs.

Mrs. Devaux is the one to break the silence again and her next words are a gentle whisper meant only for him. “It’s a hard job, yours,” she says, “but very rewarding, i think.”

Suga looks at her and the warmth of her smile makes him feel weirdly exposed.

“So, for how long have you had this shop?” he asks in an attempt to change the subject.

And Mrs. Devaux lets him. “Oh, about two years if my memory serves me right,” she says and for the next ten minutes they discuss the season – _it’s been awfully rainy this winter, it’s good for the_ _perennials_ , -  the flowers in the store – _these tea roses are stunning!_ -  and it’s surprisingly lovely. Suga throws glances at Kaede to see how he is faring around this stranger, this new environment, and sees him listen carefully to every word they say and stop to look at every plant on display, even those who are not in blossom. It gives Suga an idea.

The sun cuts a path across the thick veil of clouds and shines through the windows of the shop, bright and spring warm. Suga and Kaede decide to take advantage of the moment and collect their things, thanking Mrs. Devaux for her hospitality. As they are leaving Mrs. Devaux places a tentative hand in the crook of Suga’s arms and gives him her business card.

“I hope you’ll come back some time, Koushi-kun,” she says and the hopefulness in her eyes, so intense it almost borders on frantic, startles him.

_She must be lonely_ , is all Suga can come up with. The thought makes his throat constrict, his nana too lives alone and although her children all live near and do their best to visit her frequently, Suga knows she feels alone, forgotten most of the time. He takes the card with a nod and promises he will.

As soon as they get back home he runs Kaede a warm bath, then goes outside from the back door and looks at the sad, messy excuse of a garden before his eyes. He grins.

                                                                                          

*

 

 

Suga keeps a close eye on Kaede for the next couple of days to catch any sign of a possible cold, a sneeze, suspiciously bright eyes, weariness, but thankfully their unplanned walk in the rain comes and goes without consequences. Ayame-chan does glare at her brother when she knows about it, which Suga doesn’t really get to be honest, but that’s all.

Suga takes Sawamura-san aside on one of the few days he doesn’t come back home with a face that says he’s plotting murder to talk to him about his plan to remake the garden. By the end of his speech Sawamura-san looks overwhelmed – Suga may have overdone it with the detailed explanation of which bulbs would be best to buy, but that’s just the MA student in him – and Suga is a little out of breath himself. Though he’s not sure whether it’s due to how long he’s been talking or to the fact that having Sawamura-san’s complete, undivided attention is more than a little heady.

Sawamura-san blinks at him for a moment then a pleased smile slowly appears on his face.

“My mother has been nagging me about the state of the garden since i bought the house,” he says “but i never had much of a green thumb, plus i’m, you know, _busy_ …but she doesn’t seem to care about that.” His voice lowers to a murmur in the last part, as though he’s afraid his mother might somehow hear him all the way across the city.

“So…is that a yes?” Suga urges him.

“That’s an absolutely yes.”

The knowledge that Sawamura-san is still a momma’s boy manages to keep Suga’s mood up even when he’s forced to postpone the start of his project. Over and over.

Sure enough the bad weather lasts for days, even after the rain has stopped it’s hard to catch a glimpse of the sky – let alone of the sun – through the heavy clouds that loom over the city.

That never-ending greyness seems to affect everyone. Tooru spends more time at their apartment than usual, grumbling about ‘Iwa-chan’s dreadful personality’ as he tries to hide the bags under his eyes, Suga’s supervisor demands the next chapter of his thesis in a matter of days and is brutal with his critiques when Suga sends it to him. The line of Sawamura-san’s shoulders is always tense under his tailored shirt and Suga’s fingers almost itch to work that tension away.

And the kids, the kids are bored and lazy, trapped inside the house all afternoon. Suga tries to come up with games they can play and they always agree but as soon as they get a moment’s rest it’s clear how lethargic they are. Even Kaede, who is hardly the outdoorsy type, gets over the ‘watching the rain fall is so magical’ phase pretty quickly.

The atmosphere in the house has gotten so grim Suga resolves there’s only one thing he can do to restore the peace: use the ace up his sleeve.

 

When Kaede-kun sees him waiting outside his classroom with the carrier in hand he gasps and almost drops his schoolbag in his haste to get to him. Well, technically, to get to _her_.

Onyx meows softly from inside her plastic cage and rubs her nose against Kaede’s finger, delighted by the attention. Kaede laughs, soft and gleeful, and Suga’s heart squeezes inside his chest at how beautiful a sound it is.

“We need to go now, Kaede-kun. Before it starts raining again,” Suga tells him gently.

Kaede bites his lip and throws another glance at Onyx.

“You can cuddle her as much as you want once we get home,” Suga insists and the prospect of doing just that is enough to convince Kaede. He takes the strap of Suga’s bag and they walk off, with an unusual spring in their steps, so much so that by the time they get inside Suga realizes they are both a little out of breath. He meets Kaede’s eyes and they both smile sheepishly.

This is the first time Kaede has smiled at him directly, without lowering his head to try and hide it in a bout of shyness. It’s nice, really nice. If Suga had known this would happen he’d have brought Onyx sooner.

The first thing Onyx does when Suga lets her out is inspect every inch of the first floor, from the kitchen to the living room to the pantry – where she gets stuck, forcing Suga to pick her up to set her free again - and she would have been more than happy to go upstair and walk in the bedrooms too but Suga is quick to block her passage with his foot. She’s used to sleeping on the bed with Suga, both at the apartment and back in his home in Miyagi, so she’s come to consider _every_ bed her own. Suga can’t let her behave this way in Sawamura-san’s house, not when the man was so agreeable allowing Suga to bring her here.

Kaede follows her every move as if under a spell but while she’s patrolling the area he never attempts to pet or grab her. He seems almost nervous, torn between the desire to pet her and not really knowing how to approach her now that she is no longer confined in the carrier.

Suga follows them both with a foolish grin on his face, feeling very much like a kid on Golden Week.

  _This is even better than all the cute vines Tooru and i watch together._

Onyx goes back to the living room and immediately jumps on the couch. Kaede stops near the TV and wrings his hands in nerves.

Suga comes to stand by his side, fixes him with a knowing look and says, “Go sit on the couch too and wait no longer than 5 seconds.”

Kaede nods solemnly and does as he’s told, throwing excited glances both Suga and Onyx’s way.

_1…_

Onyx eyes Kaede with poorly veiled interest.

_2…_

Kaede bites his lip in anticipation.

_3…_

Onyx takes a tentative step toward him.

_4…_

Kaede stays perfectly still.

_…and 5!_

Onyx unceremoniously jumps to sit on Kaede’s lap and starts nosing at his shirt.

Kaede looks at Suga again, lost, unsure on what to do now and Suga feels the irrational urge to take him in his arms and hug him tight to his chest. He doubts Kaede would like that so he clears his throat, pushes the thought away and kneels in front of him to scratch Onyx under her chin.

Onyx closes her eyes in bliss.

“You can pet her, ok?” Suga says with an encouraging smile, “she especially likes when you pet her right above her tail, or on her belly.”

Kaede does as he’s told, uncertain at first then with more confidence. The smile on his face becomes wider and wider by the second.

Onyx is a good sport, she leans on Kaede’s small chest and purrs at everything he does. Patient and sweet as candy with him but when she finally gets to meet Ayame she wastes no time using her shoulder as perch.

“She is so cute!” Ayame coos whenever their eyes meet. “You need to bring her more often, Suga-san. Or better yet, leave her here!”

“Not a chance, Ayame-chan” Suga says, picking Onyx up and hugging her to his chest, “she is the only one who understands me! She’s been with me since she was little.”

“Me and my friend Taka found her in an alley near the main university building. It was raining, not much but it was pretty annoying and we were both without our umbrellas. We heard her meowing and she was soaking wet so i put her under my coat and brought her home.”

As though she knows exactly what he’s talking about Onyx looks up at him and presses her nose against his. “I caught a nasty cold after and she never left my side, isn’t that right mon petit chou?”

“Mon what?” Ayame asks.

“Petit chou, it means my little cabbage in french” Suga explains and smirks when Ayame lets out a disgusted noise. “Well, to be fair it’s also a term of endearment, like sweetheart or darling.”

“Cabbage is awful, why would the french people say sweetheart the same way as cabbage?”

Suga regards Ayame with a deadpan look and says “I better keep to myself the way they count, then. French people are weird,” then without thinking he adds “I would know, i’m half-french myself.”

_Shit._

Ayame’s eyes widen. “Really? That’s so cool!”

She waits for him to elaborate, maybe tell her some cool stories about France, how it is to live there or whatever but all Suga can bring himself to say is a muttered “From my mother’s side but i’ve never…i’ve never been. There.”

His professors always questioned why he’d turned down the opportunity of a stage in Paris – and right when he had been in the middle of writing his BA thesis on the origins of French theatre  - but he never could come up with an answer to give. _I’m scared that, if i stay in France for so long i might meet my mother?_ Because France is such a small country. Never mind the fact that he doesn’t even remember what the woman looks like.

What a fucking joke he is.

“Suga-san?”

Suga starts at Ayame’s voice. She and Kaede are both staring at him now, something like worry in their eyes, so he forces a smile on his face. “Sorry, i got lost in thoughts…”

His hands are still clenched into fists. He stretches his fingers and hides them in the pocket of his sweatshirt. The tender skin at the centre of his palms is tingling.

Onyx yawns with her face tucked in the crook of his neck, and he takes this as an opportunity to change the subject again. He turns to Ayame. “Your father didn’t seem to have a problem with me bringing Onyx here,” he says “and obviously you both would like to have a pet. Why don’t you, then?”

The corners of Ayame’s mouth turn downward and Suga wants to take that question back immediately. “It was mom who didn’t want us to.”

_Shit, i should just give up on talking right now._

He opens his mouth, an apology already on his lips, but Ayame’s eyes light up again along with her thoughts. “But she’s in Africa now so maybe we could ask daddy again!”

_Africa?_

This information barely has the time to register into Suga’s brain before he has to curse himself yet again for putting Sawamura-san in an uncomfortable position. This time, though, it was almost completely accidental.

He hopes Sawamura-san will see it the same way after his kids have come to him sporting their best puppy eyes and asking for a pet.

 

*

 

 

Daichi’s ears are ringing.

It’s probably due to all the screaming he’s had to listen to for the past two hours but that’s his own damn fault for choosing to become a lawyer. His children never screamed that loud, not even when they were babies and suffering from colics.

Daichi shares a tired glance with Ennoshita, who looks about ready to bang his head on the table in frustration. It’s not a bad idea now that Daichi thinks about it, maybe if he does it hard enough he’ll pass out and be escorted to an hospital.

Yes, even hospitals are better than this.

“You pig! You absolute pig, did you really think i wouldn’t find out about your little affair? Do you really think i’m that stupid-”

“As a matter of fact i do think you are!”

Mrs. Akinori looks at her husband, then at the paperweight on the table but before she can throw it at her husband’s head Ennoshita gets up and takes it swiftly in his hands. Good call, but his chair falls down with a loud thud at the movement and this does nothing to relieve Daichi’s headache.

Daichi closes his eyes in an attempt to block it all out and recollect his wits. He and Akaashi-san, Mrs. Akinori’s lawyer, have let this go on for far too long, he reckons, if this keeps up it’ll be nightfall before they manage to reach an agreement.

First, though, he needs to stop thinking of ways he could get away with a double homicide. The vein on his temple is throbbing.

“Akinori-san…” he tries to get his client’s attention but the man keeps looking at his not-for-long wife with something akin to disgust. What does _he_ have that expression for since he’s the asshole who cheated, Daichi has no idea. And he sure as hell doesn’t want to know.

He tries again, a little louder this time. “Akinori-san.”

Nothing. God, he hates being ignored like this. He hates men who ignore him like this.

“Akinori-san!” he booms. Ennoshita jumps in his seat and everyone’s eyes fall on him.

He ignores them all and keeps going, eyes fixed only on Akinori-san even though he’s talking to both him and his wife. He can’t keep the venom out of his voice this time. “We are here to come to an agreement not to start arguments that will take us nowhere. See it this way: the faster we get this done, the less time you’ll have to spend in each other’s company.”

Akinori-san sits down but his eyes are dark with fury. “I’m not paying you to scold me like a child, Sawamura.”

He didn’t even have the courtesy to whisper the words. Daichi won’t either then.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t behave like one.”

Just for a moment the room falls quiet, but it’s a moment too brief for Daichi to enjoy. Akinori-san stands again.

“How dare-”

It’s Ennoshita again the one who steps in to try and appease the volatile spirits. He speaks to Akaashi-san and manages to convince him to grant them five minutes alone to discuss.

As soon as the door closes behind them Akinori-san starts yelling.

“You had no right! I pay you, and i pay you handsomely, to do your bloody job and you have the nerve to insult me in front of that woman-”

Daichi listens, waits for Akinori-san to be done and doesn’t reply. The way he’d behaved just now, in that room, is…it’s unacceptable. For a lawyer, for a professional like he is. He realizes this and in front of Ennoshita’s lowered eyes he can’t not feel ashamed. Then his gaze stops to rest on Akinori-san’s face once more and all he feels is the irremovable urge to clock the man in his pasty face.

He bites the inside of his cheek and apologizes instead.

“Good, you should be sorry. You were recommended to me by a colleague but next time i see him i’m going to tell him just how ill-mannered and dishonorable you are-”

_Dishonorable._

Daichi bites harder, this time to stop himself from laughing in the man’s face. Being called dishonorable by a man who repeatedly cheated on his wife of 30 years with a nineteen years old girl feels almost like a compliment.

Akinori-san stops to catch his breath and Daichi takes advantage of the quiet to do some talking himself. “I’ll apologize again for my words, in front of your wife and her lawyer as well if you wish me to. But seeing as i’m still your lawyer and this pause was meant for us to _discuss the case_ let me tell you this: you cheated on your wife, she has proof we cannot dispute, and according to your prenup, the one _you_ had your wife sign if i may add, that grants her half of your yearly profit.”

He takes a step forward and fixes Akinori-san with a hard look. “She is a fair woman, she is asking for nothing more than what is owed to her plus the apartment she currently lives in, which is co-owned by her anyway. So as your lawyer i say: take the deal, before she decides to make you go bankrupt.”

Akinori-san does as he’s told but after the meeting is over he walks out of the room without addressing anyone or offering a goodbye. Mrs. Akinori, on the other hand, comes to shake Daichi’s hand and even offers him a quick nod.

Daichi walks back to his office, the tension in his body has him almost running. He stops only when he catches sight of Shimizu-san waiting outside his door.

 

Their talk is brief, Shimizu-san has never been one to beat around the bush and even as angry as he is now, it’s something Daichi appreciates.

A warning. He’s been given a warning. A verbal one at least but it still stings.

The thing that stings most though, is that he knows it’s earned. He knows this is no one’s fault but his own. Daichi hides his face in his hands and sighs.

His mom had always told him this wasn’t the job meant for him.

“You once pulled the fire alarm because you were fighting with another boy over a pork bun, Dai-chan. You are too hot-blooded to deal with the world’s worst slime…”

Maybe she was right, after all when had she not been right?

She’d said the same thing about Yurika as soon as she’d met her – _i just don’t think she’s the girl_ _for you, darling_ \-  and look at them now. Yurika had to go to another continent to feel like herself again after their marriage went to shambles, and while filming cockatoos - or whatever the hell the name of those birds is – for her new documentary she even managed to meet someone.

And Daichi is still caught by surprise sometimes by the lightness of his ring finger.

A soft but insisten knocking on his door distracts him and before he can tell whoever it is to come in a head of wavy, auburn hair appears, followed by an amused smile.

But after all he has someone else too. In a way.

 

Mai’s body is soft, pressed flush against his. Her hair, falling messily on her slim shoulders, tickles his jaw. Inside she is scorching hot, and wet.

Daichi kisses her as he comes to try and suffocate his moans then rests his head on her chest. His breath is coming out fast and ragged, teasing the crease of Mai’s breasts and making her shiver.

“I can’t wait to finally do this with you on a bed,” she says with laughter in her voice. She always gets giggly after sex. Daichi presses a kiss on her throat.

“What, you don’t like my desk?” he jokes back.

He finally gets out of her and her answer, if she had any, is lost in a low whimper.

“I’m sorry but you need to go soon,” he says buttoning his pants, “i already got a warning, i don’t want to get fired.”

She nods, still a little hazy, hops down the desk and starts fixing herself up.

She looks beautiful like this, she looks beautiful always but with her cheeks still red from the orgasm and her hair a mess she is breathtaking. It’s a real pity these moments between breaks are the only time they can concede themselves. The only times Daichi will allow them to have.

Mai closes the buttons of her shirt and throws a quick smile his way when she catches him staring. “You should come by sometimes,” she says, “you have a new nanny now, don’t you? I doubt she would mind doing some extras…”

“He,” is all Daichi says to that.

“He who?”

“My nanny. It’s a man.”

“Oh, that’s unusual.”

_That’s the same thing Tanaka said._

Daichi shrugs and looks around for his tie. He finds it hanging precariously on his desk lamp.

“Maybe, but he’s good. He’s…yeah, he is good.”

He is ignoring the real point Mai was trying to make. By the way she’s looking at him Mai knows this too. She is older than him, by about ten years, so she knows all too well the ‘’bullshit of men’’ as she likes to put it. Now, though, she keeps quiet.

Daichi is glad for that. He doesn’t doubt Mai’s experience but while she may know the bullshit of men, fathers are often a whole other deal and today of all days he really doesn’t feel like arguing with her on that.

In any case, if his behavior has upset her she doesn’t show it. She leaves him with a long, languid kiss and another one of her half smiles, her perfume all over his clothes and in the air of his office.

Daichi closes the door behind her and breathes it in.

He tries to get back to work then but when he opens his computer and sees the picture of Ayame and Kaede all dressed up in their yukatas at the Cherry Blossoms Festival he can’t bring himself to concentrate.

No, Sugawara-san wouldn’t mind doing some extra hours once in a while, given a sensible warning, but Daichi would. He would mind. He already sees his children so little during the week, and once Yurika comes back she’ll want to have them for the weekend and it’ll be even worse. A couple of hours given to Mai are a couple of hours less he can spend with Ayame and Kaede and he can’t do that, he doesn’t want to.

He doesn’t want to.

He turns off his computer and grabs his jacket. Once outside his office he locks eyes with Ennoshita and tells him, “Shimizu-san offered me to take the afternoon off, call her to say i accept.”

Ennoshita does and Daichi is inside the elevator as soon as he’s given the okay to leave. Then he calls Sugawara-san.

 

Ayame sees him coming from the living room window and is already in his arms before he can walk through the gate. Kaede follows suit, with a cat trailing close behind him.

“You came early, daddy!” Ayame pretty much yells in his ear. “Suga-san told us there was a surprise for us and we had to look for it outside but he didn’t tell us what it was!”

Daichi laughs at how fast the words leave her mouth and presses a loud smooch on her cheek. When he threatens to do the same to Kaede his son lifts the cat up – with some difficulty – and uses it as a shield. Even Daichi’s pathetic pout doesn’t seem to move him.

The cat meows loudly and starts wiggling in Kaede’s hold.

“And who’s your furry friend?” Daichi asks, even though he knows the answer all too well.

“This is Onyx,” Kaede says, a little breathless. Daichi takes the cat from him and puts it back on the solid ground. The cat meows again, in what sounds suspiciously like gratitude, and runs back in the house.

“Onyx, uh? What an interesting name.”

He gestures for the children to follow the cat inside and all the while Daichi is taking off his shoes and hanging his jacket they both talk his ears off about it. How Suga-san found her on a nasty rainy day and brought her home, how she climbed and sat on Ayame’s shoulder for half an hour as soon as they met – only 2 hours ago.

“And she is so cute when she purrs!” Kaede concludes, his voice only a whisper but his eyes alight with joy. Daichi’s throat constricts at how happy  Kaede looks. The cat has already taken place on the couch so there’s nothing that can save Kaede from Daichi’s obnoxious, smacking kisses now.

“No, no daddy no!” Kaede squeals and tries to get away from Daichi but to no avail.

The soft sound of steps catches their attention and they look up to find Sugawara-san standing near the kitchen door and staring at them. There’s a soft smile on his lips but as soon as his eyes meet Daichi’s he turns his face away. His bangs fall free from behind his ears as if to hide him. The little Daichi can see, the defined but gentle angle of his jaw and his ear, are both tinged a tender pink.

“Hello, Sawamura-san,” he greets.

“Suga-san,” answers Daichi with a quick nod.

Onyx jumps off the couch to reunite with her owner and starts rubbing her face on his jeans-clad calf. “Yeah, yeah we are going now…” he whispers to her as he scratches her chin.

Ayame looks at Suga-san with wide, surprised eyes and says “You are leaving so soon?”

Suga-san smiles at her, wider this time but apologetic and boops her on the nose. “Your father’s here, besides i got a call from Taka, one of my housemates, and he forgot his keys so i have to go and rescue him…” he says and rolls his eyes too for good measure.

Except it’s a total lie. Daichi is a lawyer, he can smell lies like blood hounds can smell…blood? Truffles? Whatever it is they are supposed to smell.

“Ayame,” he calls, “Sugawara-san has other things to do. You can’t demand all his time.” It’s meant to be a reproach for Ayame but it’s Suga-san the one who winces at his words. He must have heard the tension in Daichi’s voice loud and clear.

_I doubt your nanny would mind doing some extras…_

Well, apparently his nanny does mind. Can’t get out of here fast enough as soon as Daichi is back. He doesn’t know why he’s so annoyed by this thought, this newfound knowledge, after all that’s what baby-sitters are supposed to do when the parents are back home: leave. But still it bothers him, that apparently Sugawara-san has developed no real affection for his children yet.

Ayame’s voice breaks the uncomfortable silence once again. “But i thought maybe we could have dinner all together…” she says.

Sugawara-san’s eyes widen and for a moment he looks hesitant then he throws a quick glance Daichi’s way and he shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Ayame-chan. Maybe next time, alright?” he says and his eyes have gone soft again. He strokes Ayame’s hair, gently, and now Daichi finds no lies in this gesture, just careful affection.

_Then maybe it’s me Sugawara-san is uncomfortable around._

Daichi’s stomach drops. He thought he’d done his best in making Sugawara-san feel welcomed, but then again he hasn’t paid all that much attention to him, has he? Between work and the kids…yeah, now that he thinks about it the only one who’s ever made a real effort to engage in conversation is Sugawara-san. No wonder then, that Daichi hasn’t made the best impression on him.

But still he could have just said something instead of lying his way out of the house!

Sugawara-san is quick to recollect his things and tells Ayame and Kaede to say goobye to Onyx before he has to lure her inside the carrier.

“Can’t you at least leave Onyx here?” Ayame pleads, her best puppy eyes on.

Sugawara-san smirks, proving himself to be completely immune to her powers. Even through his newly-found bad mood Daichi can admit to himself he’s impressed, _he_ still hasn’t learned to say no to that look yet, and it’s been almost 9 years.

“I told you, Ayame-chan, no can do” Sugawara-san says, “i can’t sleep if Onyx is not with me, sitting on my chest and trying to suffocate me.”

Onyx meows from inside the carrier as though to agree with him. The kids laugh and Daichi’s mouth twitches involuntarily upward. He sulks harder.

Ayame gives Sugawara-san a kiss, which he accepts with a grin on his face, and Kaede waves energetically at him. At the sight Sugawara-san’s face opens into a beam, so radiant it’d put the sun to shame any day.

The kids make to follow to walk him to the door but Daichi tells them to pick a movie to watch together and they scurry the opposite way, in fear that if they don’t their father might pick one of his ‘’boring, old man movies’’ first.

So he walks Sugawara-san to the gate by himself. He expects some kind of tension to arise between them now that they are alone but Sugawara-san just thanks him, sounding a little out of breath, when he helps him with his bag and turns to leave.

“Wait a second, Sugawara-san!” Daichi stops him, his voice much louder than necessary if the way Sugawara-san jumps at the noise is any indication.

Daichi waits for Sugawara-san to face him again before he continues. “It’s too bad you have to leave so early, your friend must be a real airhead to forget his keys like that…”

“Yeah, um…”

“What did you say his name was, again?”

Sugawara-san gives him a deer in headlights look and after a brief pause he says “T-tooru. Yeah Tooru is like that,” he lets out a nervous laugh, “i’ve known him for ten years and at this point there’s really nothing much to be done about it.”

“I thought you said ‘Taka’ was the one who forgot his keys” Daichi drags his words out slowly and watches with poorly-veiled smugness the blush that starts crawling up Sugawara-san’s neck.

Then as it comes the smugness goes, because now Daichi has confirmation – well, implied confirmation - that Sugawara-san has a problem with Daichi. And it’d be just Daichi’s luck, to finally find a nanny his kids like only to find out the nanny doesn’t like _him_.

“Oh shit, and i thought i’d been so smooth!” Sugawara-san cries out and now his blush has spread even to his ears.

“So there is a problem then…” Daichi says. It surprises him how somber his tone is.

It’s just a nanny, he can find someone else if worse comes to worse.

But Sugawara-san is regarding him now with a crease between his brows, looking more confused than ever. “A problem? What problem?”

“I don’t know, you tell me, Sugawara-san!”

“B-but i have no problem,” Sugawara-san stutters, then whispers “Do you have a problem with me, Sawamura-san?”

“What?”

_What has this conversation become?_

Daichi drags a hand down his face, his patience running out. “ _I_ don’t have a problem with you, Sugawara-san. _You_ were the one who had to lie to get out of my house as soon as possible!”

Sugawara-san just looks at him for a moment, his mouth agape and his big doe eyes made even bigger by his surprise. Then he slaps his forehead, hard, and curses himself in a language that is clearly not Japanese.

“Oh, Sawamura-san, i’m sorry,” he says, sounding as tired as Daichi feels but also, maybe, a little amused as well. “I just said that to leave you alone with your children!”

What?

“What?”

Sugawara-san smiles at him, for the first time today, and it’s lovely and so incredibly gentle Daichi feels the tension of the day just…melt away. “When you called me earlier,” Sugawara-san tells him, “i thought you sounded kind of rough and, well, you were given the afternoon off and instead of running to the first bar you decided to come home to your children. I thought that’s what you wanted, to be alone with your children, and i didn’t…i didn’t want to intrude.”

He shrugs again, still awkward and weirdly timid, and Daichi’s heart seems to grow three sizes with gratitude, with relief.

“That was sweet of you, a sweet thought,” he says, just as awkward. Must be contagious.

For a moment they just stand there by the gate, looking and not looking at each other without really saying anything then a thought must occur to Suga-san because his demeanor changes completely. Uncaring of the carrier, he puts his hands on his hips and plants his feet steady on the ground. There’s a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“Why couldn’t you just ask me from the get-go if i had a problem with you? Instead of setting me up with that ‘your friend must be a real airhead’?” his voice drops lower on his last words.

Daichi clears his throat to hide to bout of laughter bubbling in his chest. “Is that supposed to be an imitation of me, because i’ve heard myself on tape and i sound nothing like that.”

Suga-san doesn’t seem to hear him, just stage-whispers to himself “I should have expected these kind of cheap tricks from a lawyer…”

“Hey!”

Their eyes meet once again and before Daichi realizes it they are both almost bent in half laughing. It doesn’t last long but as Daichi dries his eyeswith the back of his hand he realizes how long it has been since he last did this, laugh so hard he cried.

Suga-san bows and turns to go then stops in his tracks and turns again. “Oh,” he murmurs and suddenly he’s shy again, “i’m not the best cook but i’ve tried my hand at baking several times and the results weren’t that bad…”

Daichi stares at him, uncomprehending.

“Just don’t spoil your appetite before dinner, Sawamura-san!” And with that he’s gone.

 Daichi is left alone on the porch to stare blankly at the spot where Suga-san had been standing only moments before, as a stream of perplexed ‘what’ resounds in his head.

_I was right that time in the elevator, Suga-san sure is weird._

Daichi walks inside and finds Ayame and Kaede sitting on the couch watching Princess Mononoke.

“We started without you, daddy,” Ayame says, “you were taking too long out there!”

Daichi bends down and kisses her head in apology, then does the same with Kaede, who tries to swat him away but to no avail.

He walks to the kitchen to get himself a glass of water but when he opens the fridge he sees a pink box in the bottom shelf that he’s sure wasn’t there this morning. He opens it, curious. Inside there are a dozen mini chocolate cupcakes with blue and purple frosting. There’s a note too, written on one of Ayame’s jellyfish-shaped post-its. Daichi reads it and smiles to himself in the silence of the kitchen.

‘Sawamura-san, i hope your day ends better than how it started!  - S.’

_Weird. So weird…but warm, too._


	4. All the right moves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where everyone is worried about Suga, and with good reason.

He is on the carousel again.

The platform beneath his feet is spinning, so fast he falls on his ass as soon as he tries to take a step. He looks around for some kind of handhold, anything to lean on to, but the carousel is empty. The wooden horse without eyes, the carriage, it’s all gone.

He gets on his knees and starts crawling near the edge. Maybe if he slides down instead of jumping he can get down from this thing unscathed. Yes, that sounds like a decent plan.

He keeps crawling, the wind slaps his face but it’s strangely warm. Suga squints against it and looks around. There’s a figure standing near the trees, their long, silver hair flyaway and messy. Suga follows it with his eyes, craining his neck when the carousel spins past it, but the person doesn’t move.

He tries to make his way to her – _her?_ – but in his haste he stumbles and a sharp pain sparks from his hip-

“Ow. Shit!”

Suga looks around, more confused than ever, and tries to understand what the hell just happened. Ok so he’s on the floor, he knows that much – it’s really cold by the way -, and his hip hurts. The sheets are tangled around one of his legs and Onyx is staring down at him from the edge of the bed. There’s only one logical consclusion: he fell off the bloody bed.

He puts a hand on the bedside table and picks himself up. His hip gives a painful throb and his knees buckle. His legs feel like they are made of jelly and he lets himself fall on the mattress when it’s clear they are not going to support his weight for much longer.

_There was someone there._

Suga closes his eyes and the figure by the trees appears behind the red of his eyelids, but their features aren’t any more clear than they were in his dream. There’s only that long, silver hair.

_Mom had silver hair._

But Suga can’t remember if she ever wore it that long. He can’t remember much of her at all. He covers his face with his hands and only now he notices they are shaking too.

“ _Shit._ ”

His bedroom door falls open with a bang and Suga jumps, almost topples over on the mattress in shock. This day is a mess, he’s a mess and he’s been awake for less than five minutes.

He stares at the imposing figure standing in front of him. It’s Taka. “Suga-san, are you alright?” he asks. He’s out of breath.

Suga blinks stupidly at him and nods. “Yeah, um, i fell off the bed…”

Taka nods back and sighs in relief. Only now Suga notices Taka’s hair is wet, dripping on his forehead, and all he’s wearing is a towel hanging precariously from his hips. The guy fricking ran out of the shower just because he’d heard a noise and thought Suga might be hurt.

Suga stamps a smile on his face for him and prays it doesn’t look too forced. “I’m sorry for worrying you,” he says.

Taka waves his apology off and makes his way back to the bathroom.

“Hey,” Suga calls out, “is there still hot water?”

He receives no answer, which, by itself, is answer enough. He sighs and limps to the kitchen to grab a quick breakfast.

His hip has already started to bruise.

 

“And so we can conclude that taking into account the socio-economical status of not only the writer but of the characters as well is crucial for an accurate translation.”

Fukunaga-sensei fixes the glasses on his nose, then his eyes turn to the class. They stop on each and every face present and Suga can only imagine the pitiful picture they all make. Nine a-m classes are brutal.

Sensei must feel the desperation oozing from his students because after a quick nod and what Suga thinks might be the shadow of a smile, he finally dismisses them. After twenty years of teaching, seeing students lying half-dead on their desks with vacuous, desperate eyes must be routine for him.

“That is all for today, we’ll see each other next Thursday for the final lesson.”

A loud sigh of relief bounces off the walls of the classroom.

“Please at least try to contain your elation, Komi-kun..”

The guy two rows ahead of Suga blushes and starts apologizing profusely but the professor just gestures to the door, causing a herd of exhausted, hungry 20-something years old to all but run away in search for food or an horizontal surface to fall asleep on.

Suga is on his way out too when Fukunaga-sensei calls his name.

Suga walks to him as swiftly as his hip permits but can’t hide the nerves at the sharp look Sensei is giving him. He’d sent the draft of the new chapter of his thesis just two days ago and while Fukunaga-san’s first, quick review had been pretty positive he might have reread it yesterday with a clearer mind and found it to be trash.

_God, please let this not be the reason._

Suga is biting his lip so hard now he’s sure he’ll draw blood soon. He stops by the professor’s desk leaning heavily on his left leg and waits for the metaphorical axe to chop his head.

“Suga-kun is everything alright?” Fukunaga-san asks instead and for the second time in the matter of hours Suga is left blinking stupidly in the face of concern.

“Yes of course, sensei. Why?”

Fukunaga-san points to his right leg. “You are limping.”

“Oh no it’s nothing, i just fell off the bed this morning, that’s all…” Heat rises from his neck to his cheeks and he starts fidgeting with a loose thread near the zip of his satchel. There’s still a deep crease between Fukunaga-san’s brows.

“Well, that’s good to hear i suppose but i still wanted to check on you. I know i’ve been hard on you lately-”

“It’s fine, sensei. I appreciate that,” Suga interrupts him without thinking and bows his head in apology. Lack of sleep always makes him snappish.

“I wouldn’t have chosen you as my supervisor if i’d wanted to take it easy,” he says in a softer tone and again he sees the shadow of a smile in Fukunaga-san’s eyes.

“That’s fair,” Fukunaga-san says and just like that his expression darkens again, “but i still wanted to let you know that you are doing well, Suga-kun.”

The compliment is so unexpected, especially coming from this man, and Suga can’t help the tension he feels tying his stomach in knots. Usually compliments like this are followed by ‘buts’ or apologies, empty promises. Maybe Fukunaga-san has decided to drop him on another professor. Suga knows, he’s heard how requested Fukunaga-san is as a supervisor, maybe he’s too busy and he’s realized the quickest way to free some hours is by leaving Suga to someone else.

This would be even worse than seeing his entire thesis binned.

Suga stands a little straighter under Fukunaga-san’s eyes – his hip gives a painful twitch - but the line of his mouth drops in dread. “I appreciate your words, i really do, but you didn’t just ask me to stay behind to compliment me, am i wrong?”

Fukunaga-san searches his face, for something Suga doesn’t know, then sighs. “You are a straight-forward person, Suga-kun. Hard-working too, and i appreciate it. It’s the quality i appreciate the most in a student, but not if it comes at the expense of health.”

_Health?_

“I’m not sure i understand…”

“Suga-kun,” Fukunaga-san puts a heavy hand on his shoulder, “i know you’ve started working as a nanny lately. That’s a hard job, i have three kids so i would know, but you look absolutely exhausted, more so each day. Luckily this is the last class you have to take before you complete your master but still i feel that you’re spreading yourself too thin and as your supervisor i want- i _need_ to make sure that’s not going to happen.”

Suga remains speechless for a moment and the hand on his shoulder suddenly seems to weigh a ton. Fukunaga-san’s eyes bore into him and he adverts his. “That’s nice of you, sensei,” he says and even to his own ears his voice sounds strained, “i’ll try to get more sleep.”

He thanks Fukunaga-san for his interest and with one last bow he is gone before the professor can say much else.

He wishes he could be touched, and in some way he is, but Suga has never been comfortable with people actively worrying about him. He’s too used being the one who worries.

 

As soon as he gets home he throws himself into the research books he needs to read for his thesis and manages to power through for a couple of hours. He’s just about to make himself a quick sandwich for lunch when his phone rings.

It’s Tooru.

“Koushi…”

Ah, shit. Tooru uses his full first name only when he needs something. Suga closes his eyes and mentally counts to ten before answering. “Tooru, i need to pick up Kaede-kun in an hour.”

“I know, i know,” Tooru hurries to say, “but i forgot my knee wrapper and i don’t have time to get back to the house before practice starts…”

“Damn it, Tooru,” Suga hisses, then hangs up.

Tooru doesn’t call again, he knows Suga is already looking for the bloody thing.

Had it been anything else, anything else at all Suga might have said no – oh who is he kidding  – but he nags Tooru about taking his knee wrapper with him every time the idiot has a match away, so if Tooru actually asked for it himself it can mean only one thing: his knee has been bothering him again.

And so Suga runs, all the way across campus, cursing under his breath like a french sailor. The bag hits his bad hip with every hurried step and by the time he’s arrived at the gym he is panting and sweaty and gross and the pain has spread across his entire right side.

Tooru is outside the doors waiting for him, already in his practice jersey and a little red in the cheeks. Practice must have already started. Suga all but throws the knee wrapper at his face then watches him put it on with murder in his eyes.

He is still out of breath.

“You should really get back to volley, Suga-chan. If a little walk is enough to do this to you, you must be getting out of shape!” Tooru jokes but his voice falls flat. It’s clear as day he feels bad for making Suga come all the way here.

Suga doesn’t even bother answering him, just leans on the wall and tries to will his heart to stop racing. At his silence Tooru looks up, even with his eyes shut Suga can feel his gaze travel up and down his frame.

“Koushi…”

This is a different type of Koushi, one Suga likes even less.

“Are you alright?”

“What is it with everyone today?” Suga snaps. “I’m fine, alright? I’m fine.”

He finally looks back at Tooru and his shoulders drop at the worry he recognizes on his face. “You need to go, the coach is not going to wait for you much longer,” Suga says and rights himself with a hand still on the cement.

Tooru makes to speak but then he just sighs and turns toward the doors.

“And don’t think for a moment that i’m not going to ask you about your knee as soon as i get back tonight!” Suga calls out and sees Tooru wince before disappearing inside the gym.

He doesn’t close the door behind him and suddenly Suga is hit by that smell, Salonpas and rubber, like he just suffered a punch in the gut. He can hear everything from here, the squeaking of shoes against the floor, the slamming of balls hitting the wall, and dozens and dozens of voices talking, calling for a toss and encouraging their teammates.

Just when it had stopped racing, Suga’s heartbeat picks up again.

Talking himself out of it is useless, he is already peeking through the open door.

_Just in time._

It’s Tooru’s turn to serve.

Suga sees him spin the ball in his hand and take a deep breath before he goes. His jump is not as high as usual but the noise his hand makes as it hits the ball is like a thunder strike. Absolutely terrifying, it gives Suga goosebumps.

The balls hits the net but manages to fall on the other side. No one is ready to receive it. Tooru smirks and his teammates both cheer and taunt him for his luck.

A tall, red-haired guy near the net catches his attention and Suga starts when their eyes meet. The guy had already been looking at him, for he has no idea how long. Suga takes in his narrow irises and wide mouth and yes, sure enough that’s the guy who left him his number that time after class. Satori.

Suga simply nods at him and turns around to leave the smell of Salonpas behind. He has other things to do now.

Still all throughout the ride to Kaede’s school the same words, the same speech resonates inside his head. Familiar, irritating.

_“Sugawara-kun, you need to understand. Meiji has a long volleyball tradition, each year we receive dozens of requests to join the team and we scout talents all over Japan.”_

Suga offers his seat to an old lady, who gives him a wrinkly smile.

_“I say this is your best interest, practice is brutal and no matter how hard you work or how much you improve, the chances that you will actually get to step on court are close to none.”_

Suga steps down the train and walks by the platform to reach the escalators.

_“So i suggest you leave this be, before you run yourself to the ground.”_

Suga has it memorized, still after all this time. He hears it play in his head, an old, dusty record, whenever he goes to see Tooru play. Whenever he sees Ushiwaka spike Tooru’s toss.

Tooru tells him he should get back to it. Get back to volleyball. As if anyone would want him.

For a moment there, standing in the assistant coach’s office and listening to the words he’d never wanted to hear, he remembers he’d almost burst into laughter thinking it was high school all over again. Only then he’d gotten to sit on the bench, almost shoulder-to-shoulder with Ukai-san, as he watched this terrifying fifteen years old toss and serve and spike as though he were ready to grab a spot on the National team. _Then_ they were twelve on the team, he still got his moments to shine, he still had something to teach to his kouhai.

Then and there he’d still had the chance to cling onto his dream – and he’d done it too, he’d realized his high school dream in the end - but at Meiji, where the team counted thirty-five members on a bad year, there was no place for him. Not on court, not on the bench.

And his father had done so much, sacrificed so much to send him here. Suga couldn’t throw that away to follow a pipe dream. At seventeen he could afford to say ‘’That’s not the reason i play volleyball’’ but at nineteen, just arrived in the big city and allowed to stay only thanks to a scholarship that could be overturned any time if his grades were to slip, at nineteen all he could do was nod in understanding and shove his gym bag in the back of his closet.

A bell rings and Suga looks around, alarmed. He finds himself in front of Kaede’s school, his feet carried him there without him noticing.

Kaede walks to him with a skip in his steps and shows him a picture he’d drawn today in class. It’s a mimosa branch.

Kaede doesn’t frown at the bags under his eyes, doesn’t ask about his slight limp, he just stands on Suga’s good side and points at the sky. The sun is shining today, the few clouds in sight are light, sparkling white. A perfect day for gardening.

For the first time on this hellish day the smile on Suga’s face is not forced.

 

Ok, maybe gardening is too sweet a word for what they are doing now, which is throwing shit away and pulling out the weeds that have grown everywhere so that the garden won’t look like a weird mixture between a forest and a garbage dump anymore.

_Yes, definitely too sweet a word_ , Suga thinks as he picks up what appears to be a half of a shogi board.

Among the other pieces of junk Suga has already found here there are more broken chairs than he cares to count, the frame of a coffee table and a rusty bike with training wheels that must have belonged to Ayame but looks like it’s been here since the beginning of the Shouwa era.

For fear Kaede might cut himself on a piece of metal or get splinters from the broken wood Suga deals with the junk by himself, leaving Kaede with the arduous task of pulling out weeds.

Suga hears a soft ‘oof’ and turns around to see Kaede sitting on the ground, empty-handed and with an offended scowl on his face. It looks like the weeds are putting up quite the fight.

Suga bites his lip to suffocate his laughter but it explodes from within him making his whole body shake. Kaede’s scowl deepens and from then on he is vicious toward his enemies.

They only pause their work to pick Ayame up and she is way too eager to join, pulling out the weeds her brother couldn’t tackle because too big and deeply rooted as she chants her school’s name and offers encouragements.

“Kacchan don’t mind, don’t mind!” she tells Kaede after he has to give up on a particularly nasty weed. She talks like a real volleyball player already. Suga used to say these same exact words, in this same exact tone whenever Yamaguchi missed a serve or when Kageyama lost his patience with Tsukishima.

Kaede swats his sister away when she tries to pat his back and now Suga finds himself incapable of hurting, of wallowing like he’d done before on the train. Ayame turns to him and gives him one of her blinding smiles. Suga winks at her and brings another broken chair in the corner near the garbage bins.

Right in this moment his hip is the only part of him that’s still hurting.

 

It really _is_ hurting though.

Suga drags a arm across his forehead to wipe off some sweat with his sleeve. His pants and shirt are all covered in dirt and he feels absolutely disgusting. He’s sure he must look it too. He’ll have to go freshen up before Sawamura-san comes back from work.

Not that he cares about Sawamura-san’s opinion on his appearance – and not that Sawamura-san has one because of course he doesn’t, why would he have it – but as an employee it’s perfectly legitimate, not wanting to be seen by your boss looking like absolute crap.

The fact that Sawamura-san is an incredibly handsome man with great thighs, a gorgeous smile and an infectious laughter has nothing to do with any of this.

Suga’s hip gives a particularly painful throb and Suga drops a chair leg with a wince. For a moment he’s left out of breath and his head spins as if he’s on that bloody carousel again. He leans on a broken chair and closes his eyes, waiting for the wave of nausea to pass.

“Suga-san…” Ayame calls him and he finds both her and Kaede staring with wide, worried eyes. Kaede has his hand on Ayame’s sleeve, he must have been the one to notice his…moment of defaillance and alert his sister.

A stab of guilt more painful than this morning’s fall churns Suga’s stomach and he gives a helpless shrug. “I’m getting too old for this kind of manual labor,” he says and Ayame smiles at him, relieved.

Kaede, for his part, sticks closer to him, starts pulling out weeds all around the spot Suga is cleaning.

 

“Ugh, it’s so hot!” Ayame says after a while, her long hair sticking to her face.

Suga walks over to her, doing his best not to make his limp too noticeable, and puts a hand on her shoulder. “Do you want to take a break?” he says and before he can even finish the sentence Ayame and Kaede run inside.

Suga goes to follow them but he’s barely put a foot inside that they are already back, holding a bag full of mochi each.

An idea presents itself clear in Suga’s brain and he grins. “What do you say we have a little picnick?”

They choose a spot in the shade, that Suga has already cleared out from the trash, and lay down a checkered tablecloth to sit on. As if getting their pants a little dirtier could make any difference.

Ayame and Kaede eat their mochi in silence while Suga shares the plans he has for the garden.

“There,” Suga points at the faraway left corner, now all clean and bare, “i was thinking of planting some climbing plants, the fence is at the highest point in that spot so they’ll have room to grow.”

The kids nod but their eyes are empty and a little glazed over. It’s only when Suga shows them pictures of honeysuckle and wisteria plants that they light up again.

Kaede points at the wisteria with an excited glint in his eyes but of course Ayame prefers the honeysuckle and is hellbent on getting it.

“The flowers are so much prettier, you don’t understand anything!”

“Now, now…”

“Wisteria has flowers too!” Kaede whispers, arms crossed on his chest.

“But those are boring!”

“No they are not!”

“Hey!” Suga raises his voice and the kids promptly fall silent. “We can get both of them, it’s no big deal, _but_ if this is how it’s going to be every time we need to pick a plant i’ll make your father decide. That’s right, he’ll be the one to pick _all_ the plants for the garden.”

_As_ _if_. _Sawamura-san probably can’t even tell the difference between a root and a flower._

Ayame and Kaede stare at him in horror for a moment, then mutter swift apologies and agree that both plants will look nice. Just _not_ near each other.

Suga is inclined to agree.

“And of course we’ll get some iris for Ayame,” Suga continues and Ayame blushes to the root of her hair.

“Really?”

“Well, duh! We only need to pick a colour!”

That too is a struggle because there are as many types of iris as the stars in the sky but this time Suga leaves it to Ayame to decide.

“You can pick something else, Kaede-kun” Suga offers encouragingly when Ayame picks white iris instead of the purple kind he’d wanted.

Kaede points at himself with an hopeful expression.

“I’m afraid there’s not much to pick with maple and a whole tree will be a little harder to get and care for. But we can find more flowers!”

They spend almost an hour browsing on Suga’s phone, looking at flower after flower. Suga’s hair keeps getting in the way while he tries to read and when he comments on it Ayame walks in the house without a word and comes back five minutes later carrying a box with all the bobby pins and hairpins and hair ties she has.

She sits behind him on a little plastic stool and starts brushing his hair with care. It has gotten a little too long, behind it’s over chin length and his side bangs are even longer but he’s been too busy lately – and too lazy – to even think about cutting it.

“Your hair is so pretty, Suga-san” Ayame says, even though it must be pretty gross and greasy from all the sweat.

“Thank you. My classmates always used to make fun of me because it’s grey like that of an old man…”

“Yeah it is, but it’s still pretty!”

Suga turns a little to throw her a sideway glance and sees her biting her lip to keep from laughing. “You should have said ‘oh no Suga-san you don’t look like an old man at all!’ or something like that.”

“But you are! You said it too earlier!”

Kaede nods at his sister’s words and in the relaxed atmosphere he forgets to be shy and grins mischievously at him.

Suga sighs, utterly defeated. “Alas, i did, didn’t i?”

He has no idea what Ayame is doing back there. Sometimes he hears her muttering to herself but he can’t make much sense of the words. Kaede has stopped looking at Suga’s phone and is watching them instead, nodding or shaking his head at whatever stylistic choices Ayame is making.

It takes over half an hour of tugging and brushing before Ayame finally declares herself satisfied with her work. If the way Kaede is trying to stiffle his giggles is any clue Suga doesn’t want to know what’s going on on his head. Not even a little bit. He absolutely needs to remember to fix his hair too before Sawamura-san gets home, in addition to washing the sweat off himself.

Of course the thought has barely finished to compose itself in Suga’s brain that a deep, familiar voice calls out from behind him, making him jump “You sure got busy while i was away!”

_Oh dear fuck why is he here so early?_

In a moment of insanity Suga grabs one of the broken chairs lying around in the garden and attempts to cover himself with it. Ayame and Kaede throw him alarmed looks then their father opens his arms and they run to him for a hug.

Speaking of their father…Suga’s throat dries out at the sight of him. Sawamura-san looks absolutely divine today – more so than usual - in dark blue slacks and a crisp cream shirt, he’s even holding his jacket over one shoulder like a freaking Calvin Klein model.

And here Suga is, with dirt smeared all over his clothes and God-knows-what in his hair. He probably smells of sweat too.

He hates his life so much.

Probably sensing his distress Sawamura-san raises his eyes from his children to look for him and when he sees him, when he takes him in, he throws his head back and laughs.

And laughs. And laughs.

Because Suga’s pain is just so amusing to him.

“What happened there, Suga-san?” he wheezes out at last.

Suga’s instinct screams at him to run and never show his face ever again but distant are the years when he’d just let boys who laughed at him go away with it. He drops the chair with a loud clang and crosses his arms over his chest, calling for all the sass and fake confidence he possesses.

“It’s called fashion, Sawamura-san. Not that you would understand.” Suga says and this only makes Sawamura-san laugh harder.

Ayame walks by Suga’s side and mimics his pose. “Yeah, you don’t understand anything, dad. Suga-san looks cute!”

Sawamura-san and Kaede approach them too, both their shoulders shaking with laughter. Still.

“I’m not denying that, dear,” Sawamura-san says “i just think you went a little overboard with all the bobby pins and, well, pigtails are a little inappropriate for a man Suga-san’s age.”

_Oh goodness, Ayame gave me pigtails??_

Then something else, a much more important something, registers in Suga’s brain.

_Wait, wait. He’s not denying that i’m cute??_

He’s going to drop dead, right on this garbage dump garden.

His cheeks must be the color of mature tomatoes now but he raises his chin and fixes Sawamura-san with a stubborn look, dead set on not giving the man the satisfaction of seeing him embarrassed. “Unless i’m wearing something downright indecent i don’t believe in the concept of inappropriate as far as the way i dress or style my hair is concerned,” he retorts after a beat.

Ayame and Kaede stare at him with vacuous eyes but Sawamura-san looks him up and down, almost suggestively, then his gaze lingers on the color of Suga’s cheeks. He smirks. “Oh really?”

“Y-yes, really. You know what i think, Sawamura-san? I think you are just jealous because _you_ couldn’t pull this off!”

The kids turn to stare at their father to see how he’s gonna answer and Sawamura-san falters. “Of course i could,” he says and now it’s his time to cross his arm defensively, “i just don’t want to, it’s different.”

Suga takes a step toward him. “Is it really?”

Sawamura-san  takes one too. “Yes, it is really.”

“Well, i guess i can understand your reluctance,” Suga says and his accent, the slow drag of vowels, gets even more pronounced as he teases, “it’s not like you have that many hair to concern yourself with bobby pins and the likes…”

“Oooooh” the kids whisper.

Sawamura-san goes quiet and for a moment Suga fears he’s overstepped his boundaries. He’s never done this before, teasing his employer like this, what was he thinking?

He starts to apologize but before he can get the words out Sawamura-san tells Ayame “Bring me the bobby pins.” His eyes never leave Suga’s face.

 

Sawamura-san looks ridiculous.

His hair is too short for the bobby pins to actually serve for something, so they are just clipped in the most random of places, hanging on for dear life. He has a jellyfish pin right above his ear. Suga’s heart feels like it might explode and he has no idea why because, as he just said, Sawamura-san looks ridiculous.

He’s ditched the fancy suit for a pair of soft sweatpants and a tight, orange t-shirt that hugs his chest beautifully and he’s ridiculous. Ridiculously good-looking.

The kids roped him into helping with the garden and since it was Suga’s idea to do this he felt bad about leaving before they were done. That’s what he told them. He wishes his true reasons were as selfless.

So here they all are, picking up trash and weeds together.

Suga takes a piece of wood and pretends the tightness in his chest is all due to the fatigue seeping into his bones and the shooting pains in his hip. It’s easier that way.

Sawamura-san and he are working side by side, lifting things and bringing them to the corner closer to the gate. Suga is leaving the heavier stuff for Sawamura-san to take and he knows Sawamura-san has noticed by the amused looks he sometimes throws his way but the man never says anything, never complains.

Their arms brush together as they lean down to pick up the same thing – the top of a table lamp – and Suga sees, he feels his skin rise into goosebumps as a shiver runs down his spine. He moves away quickly and apologizes.

He watches Sawamura-san shrug from the corner of his eye, as if nothing happened - because _nothing_ happened – and bites back a sigh.

_It’s not just his hands then, everything about him is warm._

He goes back to work, but he keeps a few steps away.

 

It’s still so hot.

The sun has long disappeared behind the taller buildings but the humidity brought by the constant rain is making Suga gasp for breath. Of course, this only makes the pain in his hip grow worse, more and more unbearable.

He takes out a weed growing near the fence and a lock of hair falls on his face. He tucks it behind his ear with an impatient gesture only to see it fall back right into his eyes. Next to him Sawamura-san chuckles.

“It’s amazing how with all the bobby pins you have in your hair, it still manages to break free,” he says and tugs one of Suga’s pigtails. The grin he throws Suga’s way is dazzling.

Suga swallows down his heart and attempts a smile of his own. “Wow, it’s been so long since a boy pulled my pigtails,” he jokes.

Then he freezes and silence falls, defeaning, between them.

Sawamura-san is staring at him with shock in his eyes.

“I’m _so_ sorry,” Suga says, 100% ready to keel over and die of embarrassment, “i didn’t mean that you…of course i didn’t mean that you-”

“I know, i know” Sawamura-san tries to reassure him but his voice comes out too rough, too tense. “It was funny. A funny joke.”

_I’m the one who’s a joke._

Suga takes an old, wooden box in his arms to get himself something to do and tries not to notice the blush sitting high on Sawamura-san’s cheeks. He fails.

 

He and Sawamura-san are working on lifting a drawer when pain stabs him, from the hip to spread up his ribs, down his thigh. So hard the air in his lungs leaves at once, suddenly. He drops the drawer with a low moan.

“Suga-san?”

Sawamura-san’s voice reaches him muffled, as though he’s under water. He tries to tell him he’s ok, he’ll be fine in a moment but all that leaves his mouth is just another pained moan.

His head is spinning. He presses it against the wood of the drawer but it does him no good. He kind of wants to throw up but his stomach feels empty. A little too empty.

Fuck, he forgot to eat today, didn’t he.

A hand touches his elbow and it’s Sawamura-san’s voice again, talking to him, much closer than before.

“Suga-san, i’m taking you inside. Do you think you can walk to the living room?”

Suga nods but it’s a lie. He’s not sure he can even handle standing on his own right now.

“Have you eaten today?” Sawamura-san asks. Suga shakes his head.

A warm, solid arm hugs Suga’s waist.

“Ayame, go get Suga-san some orange juice.”

Through his daze Suga hears two sets of hurried steps coming toward him. He puts a hand on the drawer and tries to right himself, attempts a smile. He doesn’t want the kids to worry. God he can’t believe he did this in front of the kids.

“Suga-san…” Ayame calls with a tiny voice.

“Ayame do as i said, please” her father tell her.

She bites her lip but doesn’t move.

Suga wants to hug her tight. Then he remembers it’s his fault she looks so worried and he wants to cry instead.

“Ayame,” her father says again. This time she listens and runs inside the house.

By the time she is back, Sawamura-san has put both arms around him and Suga’s vision is in blotches of red and white.

It gets better after he’s drunk some juice, the sugar helps him stop shaking and his head feels a little clearer but his knees are still weak. Sawamura-san has to almost carry him inside so he can sit down.

“God, i’m so sorry,” Suga tells him as soon as his head hits the headboard of the couch.

Sawamura-san squeezes his shoulder and tells him not to worry. He throws him one last piercing look before disappearing in the kitchen to fix him something to eat. Ayame sits next to Suga and rests her cheek on his shoulder, her eyes never leaving his face.

“Are you feeling better, Suga-san?”

He nods and cards his fingers through her hair unthinkingly. “Yes, thank you.”

A sniff catches his attention and for the first time he notices Kaede is in the room with them. He is standing near the door and pointedly not looking at Suga but down, at his feet. His bottom lip is trembling.

“Kaede…” Suga calls him and waits for him to raise is eyes. “I’m so sorry, darling.”

It slips, that term of endearment, and he expects Kaede to grimace at it or something but he just nods briefly and walks to sit by his other side.

Sawamura-san finds them like that, all huddled close together on the couch, and he can’t hide the fondness in his eyes. Suga can’t blame him, in fact he’s pretty sure he has the very same expression on his face. These kids are something special.

“Eat them all, Suga-san” Sawamura-san says, pointing at the tray full of sandwiches he’s carrying, and his gaze turns stern as though he expects Suga to argue or complain.

He would never, not when Sawamura-san has been so kind. He eats all four sandwiches before him, careful not to leave even a crumb and when he’s done he finally feels like himself again. Well, almost.

He leans on the couch to stand, despite everyone’s protests, and bows. First at the children, then at Sawamura-san. His heart is so heavy with gratitude.

Then Kaede reaches out and takes his hand. Suga looks down at him, and he doesn’t even dare breathe. Sawamura-san and Ayame have fallen quiet too.

Kaede tugs at his hand once and says “Sit now.”

Suga does immediately and he has to fight every instinct, every cell in his body, to refrain from hugging Kaede tight to his chest.

 

They are all dead set on driving him home and it never crosses Suga’s mind to refuse. He is so not in the mood to take the train but if he’s honest to himself he just…he doesn’t want to leave. He doesn’t want to go back home, where the only one waiting for him is Onyx.

It’s nice here. Warm.

“Seat belt, Ayame.”

“Ok, ok.”

Suga looks at Ayame, grumbling under her breath as she fixes her clothes under the belt, then at Kaede sitting moodily on his car seat and sighs. He doesn’t even allow his eyes to stop on the man next to him.

“You’ll have to be my navigator once we get inside the campus, Suga-san” Sawamura-san throws him a quick glance, as though he’s making sure Suga is still with him.

He must have stayed silent for longer than he thought.

“Oh no, Sawamura-san. Just leave me outside the gate, it’s fine.”

“No can do. We’ll personally escort you all the way to your door, right kids?”

“Absolutely!” Ayame trills. Kaede jumps at the noise and limits himself to nod resolutely at Suga.

Suga bites his lip and looks down at his lap, at his hands clenching the fabric of his satchel. Is it ok to cry over how sweet the family you’ve been working for for only a bunch of weeks is? He thinks so, but it might be better to wait until he’s alone in his room.

“Suga-san, are you alright?”

Suga nods and gives Sawamura-san what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “Turn left here, it’s faster this way” he says.

As fast as it can get with Sawamura-san behind the wheel. The man drives with so much excessive care, his hands tight around the wheel and his expression tense. That’s probably due to his children being in the car with him. He’s a nervous driver too, bites his lip whenever someone honks at him or changes lane without warning and is constantly tip-tapping his finger on the wheel. At some point a moron stops abruptly right in the middle of the street to drop off one of his friends, forcing Sawamura-san to hit the brakes in a hurry, and Sawamura-san turns red with rage.

“Motherf-”

Suga has to pinch his thigh to stop him from finishing that sentence. It’s like touching marble. How can a lawyer have these kind of muscles, Suga has no clue.

“Ow!”

“What was that, daddy?” Ayame asks with wide, innocent eyes.

Sawamura-san throws her a forced grin and a ‘’nothing, dear’’ then gruffly nods at Suga in thanks.

They arrive at Suga’s house with no more accidents and as soon as the Sawamura family lays eyes on where Suga lives they remain speechless for just a moment.

Suga is suddenly all too conscious of the cracks on the walls and the chipped white paint on the door, of the weeds growing all around the porch and the sad chaise lounges he and Tooru bought at a flea market to try to make the place look more home-y.

“Well, um, goodbye then,” Suga says hurriedly and leans behind his seat to give Ayame a kiss.

She demands two.

Kaede meets his eyes, shy once again, and blushes a little when Suga smiles softly at him.

Sawamura-san insists on walking him all the way to his door and now it’s Suga’s turn to blush. God, he’s so pathetic.

“Thank you for accompanying m-” he begins to say, then of course he drops his keys on the welcome mat.

He and Sawamura-san lean down to pick them up at the same time and, again, _of course_ , their heads bump together.

“I’m so sorry”

“No, _i’m_ so sorry”

They stand there like a couple of idiots for what’s probably no more than a bunch of seconds but seems like a small eternity to Suga. Time just…has a way to stretch itself whenever he finds himself face to face with this man. He quickly averts his eyes and starts to fidget with his keys.

He hears a soft chuckle coming from Sawamura-san and before he can truly register or understand what’s happening Sawamura-san reaches out and runs his fingers through Suga’s hair. His thumb skims inadvertently on the shell of Suga’s ear and Suga feels it all the way to his toes. It tingles.

“You forgot one,” Sawamura-san says and when Suga finally finds it in himself to look at him again he sees he’s holding a bobby pin between his fingers.

_Of course that’s why…_

Before going out both he and Sawamura-san had taken care to get rid of the bobby pins and, in Suga’s case, of the pigtails. This one must have escaped him, hidden under his ear. He is such a moron, and for so many reasons.

Sawamura-san doesn’t seem to perceive his discomfort, he just plays with the bobby pin, a pensive look in his eyes. “You know, Ayame didn’t talk to her best friend for three days when she thought he had lost this bobby pin. It’s her favourite,” Sawamura-san says.

Only now Suga notices it’s the one with the shrimp. He finds himself smiling. “She knows i like them.”

“Hmm”

Sawamura-san is looking at him now, right into his eyes, as though he’s trying to figure something out. Or figure _him_ out. “She must like _you_ a great deal to let you wear it,” he says in the end.

Suga shrugs but he can’t hide how pleased he is at the words. “I think so…”

“I know so.”

Silence again then, just as Sawamura-san opens his mouth to say more, a car honk resonates in the still, humid air.

It’s Ayame, clearly tired of waiting around in the car with nothing much to do.

Sawamura-san sighs in exasperation and Suga has to bite his lip not to laugh in his face.

_These kids are really something._

“Well, then…goodnight, Suga-san”

“Goodnight to you too, Sawamura-san.”

Sawamura-san reaches out again and puts a hand on Suga’s arm, near his elbow. Suga’s heart skips a beat.

“Take care, alright? And please don’t feel like you have to come if you are unwell. I can stay home for one day…”

Suga nods stupidly at him and with a last goodbye and a wave at the kids he disappears inside.

The places where Sawamura-san had touched him burn as though his skin has been set on fire and one thought resonates in his head, loud and clear and urgent: _I so need to get laid_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honeysuckle or wisteria? White iris or purple iris?  
> To you the final verdict.


	5. What I worshipped stole my love away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tendou finally appears in all his snarky glory, Suga meets the mother, and serious conversations are had.

“That’s it for this class. Do try not to forget everything i’ve said in the past months as soon as you leave this room, please. It’ll be useful not only to pass the exam but in your work life as well. Now go, get out of my sight and take a nap. You all look terrible.”

Fukunaga-san all but shoos them away as soon as the applause dies down and Suga leaves the classroom with a relieved smile on his face. He fully intends on taking sensei’s advice and throw himself in the comfort of his bed as soon as he gets home.

He can already feel the softness of the sheets against his skin, Onyx’s warm, furry weight on his chest…

He closes his eyes in bliss then jumps as his phone buzzes in his pocket. It’s a text from Sawamura-san.

might be home a little later than usual i have an important case to discuss

Suga smiles at how awkward it all reads, so serious and formal, and answers with a simple ‘got it’. He doubts Sawamura-san would appreciate his excess of emoticons, he probably doesn’t even know how to read them.

A voice interrupts his thoughts, low and a little nasal and vaguely familiar.

“So you do know how to use your phone.”

Suga turns around and sees the phone number guy, Satori, leaning casually against a wall and looking at him intently.

“I thought maybe you were one of those technologically-impaired people who think they are too good to learn how to keep up with the times.”

Satori makes his way to him, slowly, until they are standing so close Suga could rest his cheek on the guy’s chest if he wanted. He doesn’t, because their nearness also means he has to look a good deal up to stare Satori in his eyes and guys so needlessly tall have always irritated him for some reason.

Some reason being envy.

“How did you even come to that conclusion?” Suga asks. He knows the answer already.

Satori knows it too. “You never called me.”

“Oh and being technologically-impaired is the only possible explanation for that.”

They start walking side by side through the crowd of students running around to get to class. “Did it ever occur to you that i might not be interested?”

Satori is left speechless for a moment, as though he hadn’t expected Suga to say that, hadn’t expected Suga to talk back at all. Then he laughs.

“No, it hadn’t,” he says at last, still wheezing. “So you aren’t?”

Suga isn’t given the time to reply though, Satori is not done. “Because judging from the way you carry yourself, the tension in your shoulders, i’d say you need to get laid big time.”

Now it’s Suga’s turn to be at a loss of words. Heat rises up his neck to spread on his cheeks and when he catches sight of a trumphant smile on Satori’s face he has to bite his lip to keep himself from telling the guy off.

Fuck, is it really that obvious?

He rolls his shoulders self-consciously and hugs his books to his chest.

“So this is what i’m offering,” Satori continues, uncaring. “You get to have sex with me and take that stick out of your ass.”

“And what do _you_ get?”

“Being the one who helps you do that is enough of a reward for me.”

_What a dutiful citizen, a truly  altruistic soul._

Suga stops dead in his tracks at the smirk on the guy’s face and hisses “You barely know me!”

Satori is unfazed by his observation. “I know the way your hips swing as you walk is incredibly promising and i know that you’re single. That’s enough for me.”

And it dawns on Suga.

“You talked to Tooru!” he says and his voice comes out much, much higher than he intended. “Did that idiot ask you to do this?”

He will never get over the humiliation if Satori says yes.

Satori furrows his brows in confusion and stares him down. “What? Ask me to deflower you?”

“There is nothing to deflower!”

“Or ask me to stare at your ass whenever you walk past me in class? Seriously, i was the one who asked Oikawa about you after i saw you two talking, he told me you were single and i decided to go for it.”

Suga looks him straight in the eyes to search for clues that he’s lying but all he finds is surprise and a good deal of irritation. Great, apparently he’s forgotten how to talk to men in the few months he hasn’t had one under him. Or above him. Or really anywhere near him.

“Alright, alright,” he says with a sigh, his palms open in apology “sorry, it’s just that Tooru can be a real busybody when he wants to.”

“Mmm”

Satori is still studying him, his gaze flickers to Suga’s face to his body with shameless intensity. Suga has to clear his throat twice to make him stop and focus on the conversation again.

The guy doesn’t even have the courtesy to look apologetic, he just shrugs and says, “So, you interested or not? In us having sex i mean.”

“Yes i know what you mean.”

“Or are you…” he pauses for a second and his eyes fall on Suga’s clothes again “you’re still single, right? Cuz i don’t want to get in the middle of anything complicated.”

“Yeah, i’m…i’m still single,” it almost comes out as a question. The guy’s been hitting on him for a good ten minutes and only now he thinks to ask, and why does he need to in the first place? Tooru already told him.

Satori must hear the surprise in his voice. “I just thought, you’re dressed nicer than usual and you were smiling down at your phone before. I thought maybe you’d met someone and that’s why you didn’t call.”

Suga doesn’t even hear the end of the sentence, mortification hits him like a wave when the sea is calm, leaving him staggering, speechless and gasping for breath.

He _is_ dressed nicer than usual. This morning, standing in front of the mirror his logic had seemed pretty solid: dress better than usual after Sawamura-san has seen you covered in dirt and wearing silly bobby pins. Dress better than usual and give Sawamura-san a good impression by looking your age for once.

It had been solid logic, reasonable motivations, but now that he’s been slapped in the face with it he realizes what a lie it was. A pathetic lie to suit his pathetic life.

He goes home in a hurry, Satori’s number saved on his cell, but once he’s standing in front of the mirror again he can’t bring himself to get changed.

 

*

 

 

They are all still busy cleaning the garden today. The days before it had rained, thin, spring rain, nothing like the storms of past weeks but it’d still forced them to stay inside again. It had been good for Suga, the bruise on his hip was – _is_ \- hurting still, but if he wants to get started on the garden before rainy season is upon them then he has to get a move.

So here they are again, he and the kids, picking up weeds in the mud and falling on their asses in the process 90% of the time. Thankfully Suga got smart and brought with him rubber boots and his nasty overalls covered in crusted paint, his nice clothes safely stretched out on the couch for him to wear before Sawamura-san gets home.

Another splash reaches his ears and he turns around just in time to see Kaede on his back, desperately moving his legs and arms like a tortoise trapped on its shell.

Ayame laughs at him, only to slip on a puddle of mud and find herself in the same situation.

“You shouldn’t laugh at people’s misfortune, Ayame-chan” says Suga in reproach as he helps Kaede up. “Karma doesn’t forget nor forgive!”

Kaede takes his hand, grateful, but lets it go as soon as he’s on his feet. Still, just last week Suga doubts Kaede would have let him go this far.

Ayame springs to her feet by herself and throws a smug grin at her brother. Kaede sticks out his tongue in reply.

She sticks out her tongue harder.

“Hey, you two,” Suga says with a huff, “a flea is going to land right on your tongues if you don’t stop!”

He pulls at a particularly stubborn weed and sure enough he falls with his butt on the ground too.

Ayame and Kaede stare at him in surprise, then look at each other and burst out laughing.

Suga leans back on his palms and throws his head back with a sigh. “Ah, look at this. Once again a man’s hubris is cause of his downfall.”

Then, at the kids. “I’m too old and weak to pick myself up. Who is going to help me now in this time of crisis?” he says, his voice broken with despair.

Ayame is on him before he can even finish the sentence.

She tugs at him till she’s red in the face but to no avail. Kaede joins too at some point, pulling at the strap of his overall with great intent. Still nothing.

They are both breathless with laughter every time Suga lets himself fall heavily on the ground again.

“Yeesh, Suga-san, you’re so much heavier than it looks!”

“Oy, what’s that supposed to mean?”

In the end they are saved by Suga’s phone ringing. Suga jumps to his feet and even does a cartwheel for show.

“You liar!” Ayame cries out between giggles.

He throws a cheeky grin her way. “What can i say, kids? Apparently there’s still some strength in these old bones.”

“And don’t try doing that without me!” he adds swiftly when he sees Kaede put his hands on the ground to attempt a cartwheel of his own.

To no one’s surprise it’s Sawamura-san’s name flashing on his screen.

“Hello, there!” Suga answers genially, then curses himself for sounding like a complete tool.

“Hey, Suga-san…”

In the weeks he’s come to somewhat know Sawamura-san, Suga has learned to recognize the man’s mood just by the inflection of his voice. It’s a rich, beautiful tenor when he talks to his kids, it’s a deep rumble when he’s upset and it assumes an almost metallic hue when he’s irritated, harsh like a whip parting the air. Today it reminds Suga of the first time they’d met, higher than usual and quick to take pauses, uncertain. Suga’s spine stiffens with sudden apprehension.

“Is everything alright, Sawamura-san?” he decides to ask after the line has fallen quiet for a little too long

A sigh, static in Suga’s ear. “Yes, yes. I just…i got a call from my ex-wife, she-” Sawamura-san interrupts himself abruptly. The words, he’s forcing himself to pull them out like a bad tooth.

Suga waits, in silence, until Sawamura-san finds them.

“She’s away for work, i don’t think i ever mentioned. Anyway she, she skypes with the children every day and it’s usually after dinner but she has a commitment of some kind later so she…she said she’d call around 5.”

Oh.

“I see and you…”

“I can’t be there in time. I’m sorry, Suga-san” the man sounds so sincerely apologetic, mortified even and Suga so wants to reassure him, he needs to reassure him .

So he tries, with his best carefree tone he says “It’s alright, Sawamura-san. All i have to do is open Skype, besides it’s about time i meet…um…” - he has absolutely no idea what her name is – “…the kids’ mother,” he finishes lamely.

_Good job at sounding breezy and confident, Koushi. Good job._

“Yes, right,” Sawamura-san sounds even more nervous than before, “Yurika might want to ask you some questions, she wasn’t too happy with me for hiring you without her approval” - _well,_ _shit_ – “but i told her to go easy on you so just…be you and i’m sure she’s going to love you.”

His voice softens in the last part, becomes a comforting murmur, and Suga is not prepared, wasn’t prepared for this and his stomach twists. Fills with bloody butterflies.

“Thank you, Sawamura-san,” he croaks.

In the end he was the one to reassure Suga, but – and this, Suga can’t know - Suga’s not the only one to hang up with a lighter heart.

 

Yurika-san’s face appears on the screen at 17:00 sharp, a little blurry at first and then much clearer, and Suga understands.

Ever since Ayame first mentioned that her mother – Sawamura-san’s ex wife – is still alive and well, Suga has been obsessed by the thought of what she must be like, look like. And here she is, in all her splendor, the woman Sawamura-san married, the woman he had children with. The woman who let him go.

She is absolutely gorgeous, in a way even the subpar camera of her computer can’t hide or blemish. The smooth, olive skin, the luscious black hair, the perfect shape of her thin lips. Her eyes immediately fall on Suga and she is stunning, did he mention that?, and all he can do under that fathomless stare – _Kaede has her eyes_ -  is drag his sweaty palms over the dark fabric of his nice pants and attempt a smile.

He’s often been told his smile is his best feature, the ace up his sleeve, he sure hopes those people were right because he’s never felt more self-conscious, more overwhelmingly average than in this moment.

Yurika-san looks him up and down, the intensity of her scrutiny makes his skin tingle, but in a completely different way from that caused by Sawamura-san’s touch. She doesn’t say anything to him but it doesn’t escape to Suga the way the line of her mouth has tightened. She mustn’t have been too impressed with what’s before her. Suga can’t really blame her.

Ayame – bless her – must notice his discomfort, or maybe just the direction of her mother’s gaze, puts her hand in the crook of his arm and tugs at him to come sit on the couch next to her and Kaede.

“This is Suga-san” she says with a beam.

“I’d guessed it,” Yurika-san says with a smile of her own, though clearly not as wide, her daughter’s enthusiasm irresistible. “Although i’ve got to say i wasn’t expecting him to be quite so young…”

“You are not still in high school, are you Sugawara-kun?”

Suga bites the inside of his cheek to keep from showing his irritation. “No, ma’am. Actually i’m studying to get my master from Meiji University, so i’m well into my 20s…”

By this at least Yurika-san looks impressed, “Oh well, congratulations. That’s an excellent university.”

“Thank you.”

Silence stretches between them, for a little too long for Ayame’s taste because she immediately starts recounting the way she and Suga first met, their gardening project. She even talks about Onyx.

“She is so cute, mom!” Kaede interjects, the first words he’s said since this conversation started. Yurika-san stares at him in almost wonder then her expression turns curious, her eyes find Suga again as though she’s unsure of what just happened.

Kaede talked in front of him, not his usual shy whispers either, he showed eagerness and enthusiasm. That’s probably not the way Yurika-san had expected him to behave in front of who, to her, is a complete stranger.

Suga smiles at her again and this time it’s not pretend.

Yurika-san gives him a slow nod and she seems to soften, relax as though a great weight just got lifted from her shoulder. Even risks a smile at some point, when Ayame and Kaede mention the pigtails.

It’s clear that any tension, any uncertainty in his regards was only due to her not knowing him and worrying he might not be good enough to take care of her children. And that’s good, it’s good that she seems to care so much. These kids deserve parents who care.

Suga has just started to relax a little, then Yurika-san asks her children about school, about them, and the mood shifts. Completely.

Ayame’s shoulders drop. “We are learning how to serve,” is all she says but Suga hears none of the eagerness, the excitement with which she’d announced it to him and Sawamura-san days ago.

Yurika-san smiles and while the pride is obvious there’s a shadow in her eyes that suggests she noticed all too well the forced flatness of Ayame-chan’s voice.

She and Suga share another look and he gets up to fix the kids a snack.

“It was nice meeting you, Suga-kun” she says and the gratitude in her tone, in the bow of her head is obvious, although gone too fast.

Her voice still reaches him loud and clear near the kitchen door.

“I’ll be back in three weeks, and then you can show me how much you’ve improved, dear. I can’t wait to see all the things you’ve learned.”

Tinged with a subtle desperation that causes Suga’s heart to squeeze tight in his chest.

He leaves the door ajar, just a chink, and takes the rice cooker. He knows where it is now, Sawamura-san showed him. He’ll make some onigiri for snack.

 

Ayame disappears in her room as soon as the call ends.

Kaede stares at her retreating back with a lost expression on his face but he makes no move to follow. He eats his onigiri in silence then he takes his drawing materials and loses himself in his own world, made of clear lines and bold colors.

Suga stands up with the excuse of bringing some onigiri to Ayame and the boy doesn’t even look up from his paper. He was probably expecting Suga to go after her at some point.

Suga has to knock twice before Ayame’s voice finally reaches him, giving him permission to come in.

“I brought some onigiri” he says with forced enthusiasm and leaves the tray on her bedside table.

The light seeping through the violet curtains reflects on the trophies and medals perfectly displayed on her shelves and creates golden and pink-ish reflections, plays of light on the opposite wall. He follows Ayame’s eyes and finds them fixed there.

“That’s a lot of trophies.”

Ayame shrugs but her silence doesn’t last long. “Daddy taught me how to play when i was four.”

Indeed those are all volleyball-related trophies.

Suga walks over to the shelves and taps his fingers on the biggest cup, sitting right in the middle of the top shelf. “What’s this for?” he asks, even though he could simply read it on the tag at the base.

“Our team came in second at the Tokyo volleyball tournament last year” comes the laconic answer.

“That’s impressive”

“I guess.”

“And this one?” he points at a medal this time, carved to look like a volleyball. It’s the shiniest of the bunch.

“Same tournament this year. We placed fourth,” now there’s bitterness in her voice and Suga doubts it has anything to do with failing to best the previous year’s results.

“It was three months ago,” Suga reads the date on the back of the medal and it all becomes clear.

“Daddy took pictures,” Ayame mumbles in her pillow and now her eyes are downcast, “for mom. _He_ always comes to my games.”

“And your mother doesn’t?”

She gives him a weak shrug. “Not to all of them, sometimes she has work. Or she is on the other side of the world.”

There it is, that bitterness again. It sounds so wrong coming from Ayame-chan, who is always so positive, so cheerful and kind.

With tentative steps Suga comes to sit on the bed next to her and when she doesn’t protest he starts caressing her hair, the way his father used to do when he was little and crying because everyone had a mom except for him.

“You said it too, Ayame-chan. It was because of work and she asked your father to take pictures for her, didn’t she?”

“Right, as if that’s the same as being there” she hisses and her hands close into fists on the pink bedsheets.

“Sometimes work doesn’t allow us to do the things we want,” he tries to reason, “like in school, while you’re sitting in class listening to your teacher go on and on about this or that kanji don’t you wish you could be somewhere else, maybe outside in the park to play volleyball with your friends?”

Ayame bites her lip and Suga has to lean down to hear her whisper. “Yeah, sometimes…”

“That’s the same for your mother, darling. I’m sure she wanted to be there for you but work-”

“How do you know?”

Suga stays quiet for a moment, his hand frozen in mid air now that Ayame has moved away to look at him with wide, furious eyes.

“How do you know?” she repeats, louder. “You don’t know my mom, you don’t know anything about her!”

Suga’s hand drops on the mattress. Ayame’s lip is trembling.

She is right. Of course she is. What does Suga know about Yurika-san, except that she’s beautiful and she is somewhere in Africa doing God-knows-what? What does he know about her relationship with her children?

Nothing, here’s the truth. Before today he didn’t even know her name.

And most importantly what does he know of the love of a mother?

He backs away. He stands up from the bed and fixes the tray in his place. “You’re right, i don’t know her,” he says and for a moment Ayame looks shocked at his easy agreement.

“I’m sorry, Ayame-chan.”

“Suga-san?”

“You should eat your onigiri now,” and pushes her hair away from her eyes.

She is biting her lip now, she looks like she wants to apologize but there’s nothing she needs to feel sorry for. It’s his fault, for overstepping, for trying to tell her how to feel.

His hand is already on the door handle when it comes back to him: the tinge of desperation he’d heard in Yurika-san’s voice just over an hour ago. And he may know nothing of a mother’s love but he does know how the lack of it feels.

He turns around to meet Ayame’s eyes again. “I don’t know your mother” he says again, then continues “but i think that, if she really didn’t care, she wouldn’t insist on Skyping with you every day, or ask your father for pictures.”

Ayame says nothing, but now her gaze is turned somewhere else.

“Just think about this, it’s all i ask,” and with this Suga leaves, closing the door behind him all the way until he hears it click.

 

He and Kaede decide to watch a movie to pass the time. It feels bad, almost inappropriate to play games and have fun while Ayame is locked in her room, so obviously upset.

Suga doesn’t knock again, doesn’t try to get her to talk through the door.

Kaede puts on Kiki’s Delivery Service – Suga hasn’t watched that movie in years – and curls in a ball on the couch, so close to Suga he’s almost resting his head on his shoulder.

He looks up from time to time, in direction of the stairs and Ayame’s room but he doesn’t say or do anything. So they sit, with the movie playing in the background but not really paying any attention to it.

Suga is well on his way to fall into the arms of Morpheus when he hears the sound of steps pit-a-patting on the wooden floor, the carpet-covered stairs.

Ayame stands next the TV, looks between him and Kaede then comes to sit by Suga’s other side, mirroring her brother’s position.

On the screen  Kiki has just discovered she’s lost the ability to fly and Suga feels the wet of tears on the fabric of his shirt.

His hand comes up to stroke Ayame’s hair but otherwise he pretends not to notice.

 

*

 

They are all asleep by the time Daichi comes back from work.

He opens the door, toes off his shoes and he almost lets the bag fall in surprise at the sight before him. Suga-san is sitting in the middle, his cheek resting on the back of the couch, eyes closed and breath deep and even. Kaede is curled in a ball on Suga-san’s left side as though he’s trying to take up as little space as he can but in his sleep one of his hands has come to rest on Suga-san’s chest and is fisting the fabric of his shirt tightly.

And Ayame, Ayame is leaning heavily on Suga-san’s right side and using his shoulder as a pillow. The light coming from the TV outlines the dry trails of tears on her cheeks and Daichi’s heart drops, skips a painful beat.

He walks over to them and tucks a lock of Ayame’s hair behind her ear.

The parquet creaks under his feet and it’s enough to wake Kaede up.

Kaede blinks at him, then at his own hand and lets Suga-san’s shirt go quick, throwing an embarrassed look his father’s way. As if Daichi could ever be mad about the fact that Kaede is slowly learning to trust someone other than him or the immediate family.

He picks Kaede up – it’s getting harder every day – and presses a kiss on his hair.

Kaede is still too sleepy to protest like he usually does, he just throws his arms around Daichi’s neck and hides his face in his chest.

Daichi turns off the TV and the sudden silence wakes Ayame too. As soon as she sees him she makes to greet him in her usual…very loud way but Daichi gestures to Suga-san still asleep next to her and she goes for a silent hug instead.

Then they all stay quiet and stare at Suga-san.

It’s amazing how with all the shuffling and moving happening around him he’s still sleeping a blissful, deep sleep, all hunched down on the couch in a way that can’t possibly be comfortable.

“He is so cute…” Ayame whispers and she blushes when Daichi and Kaede look down at her with matching raised eyebrows.

Daichi’s eyes fall on Suga-san again and ok, he has to concede his daughter kind of has a point. Suga-san is all heart-shaped face and full, pouty lips, heart-stopping smiles and pretty hair. And even though they are closed now it’s all too easy for Daichi to picture his wide, doe eyes dancing with mischief. Yes, Sugawara-san could be described as cute, beautiful even but the thought that Daichi might have to worry about his daughter developing a crush on him is enough to make his stomach drop to his feet in dread.

There’ll be none of it in this house. None of it.

He shakes Suga-san’s shoulder, admittedly with a little too much force than necessary.

“Leave him alone, daddy!”

“He’ll have to wake up sometime, he can’t just sleep on our couch forever.”

Ayame throws him a look that says she’d gladly let him.

_Oh God, am i too late?_

Daichi shakes the guy even harder.

Sugawara-san tenses under his touch and an annoyed crease appears on his brow. His eyes stay stubbornly closed.

“Three more hours, Tooru,” he mutters and swats Daichi’s hand away.

Daichi snorts, loud and admittedly unflattering. At the noise Suga-san opens one eye and regards him with an irritated look. It takes him a moment to put Daichi’s face into focus, then he blinks and opens his other eye as though he’s not sure whether he’s really seeing what he’s seeing or not. His eyebrows shoot up and his jaw goes slack with surprise but his gaze turns thoughtful, somehow. Softer too…

“Sawamura-san?” he says and his voice is honey dripping down Daichi’s spine.

Daichi’s breath gets stuck in his throat.

Then Ayame lets out a muffled giggle and Suga-san freezes. He looks around himself and when he meets the kids’ eyes he stands to his feet so fast he has to grip Daichi’s arm for the head rush. He is so red in the face, on his ears, down his neck, Daichi is almost tempted to call an ambulance, afraid his head might explode.

He releases his breath and thinks no more of it, of the way Suga-san had looked at him, that fleeting moment he didn’t know where he was, trapped halfway in a dream.

 

Suga-san seems to be in a hurry to leave, his cheeks still a little pink for falling asleep on the job and being woken up by his employer. He is moving around the house like a spinning top, collecting his things and muttering under his breath in french. He hasn’t looked at Daichi once.

Daichi only manages to corner him when he goes in the kitchen to grab his bag. He plants himself in front of the door and clears his throat, watches Suga-san’s back straighten, his shoulders go taut under the fabric of his shirt.

 “How did it go with…?”

He doesn’t need to say more.

Suga-san stills, his dirty overalls in hand, and takes a deep breath. “Well, i guess. She didn’t start an interrogation like you feared, she didn’t really talk to me at all and i left the room while she talked to the kids. To, you know, give them some privacy.”

He’s speaking faster than usual, the drag of his vowels and the rich quality of his ‘r’ even more evident, a mix of typical Miyagi accent and the consequence of studying Romance languages for years. Daichi can barely make out what he’s saying but he knows from the way the guy is fidgeting that there’s something Suga-san’s not telling him.

He won’t have it.

“So it was fine? Everything went fine?” he presses, “Ayame cried for other, unrelated reasons then, uh?” He doesn’t even try to repress the harshness in his voice. Suga-san flinches and for a moment he looks almost in pain. He starts talking.

 

 “I shouldn’t have told her how to feel…”

“You were just trying to help.”

“…but Yurika-san doesn’t seem like an unconcerned mother-”

“She isn’t,” Daichi says and watches Suga-san nod and close into himself, eyes faraway and a little hazy.

“I figured,” he mutters under his breath.

It’s a look that Daichi recognizes but hadn’t really seen, never thought he’d see on Suga-san’s face. It doesn’t suit him. Suga-san’s face is made for laughter and warm smiles, careless mischief, not for pain. And yet, Daichi has no idea where this is coming from but he has a feeling this pain is deeply ingrained, something old and monumental that’s as much a part of Sugawara Koushi as his warmth, his consideration for others.

He doesn’t like it, not one bit.

The words hang heavily between them before he can even process them. “Stay for dinner, Suga-san.”

It’s not even a question but he relaxes only when Suga-san nods.

 

The news that Suga-san is staying for dinner is welcomed with a loud whoop by Ayame. It’s clear the little fight the two had earlier is well behind her.

For his part Daichi has no idea what prompted him to invite Suga-san, maybe it’s the sadness he saw in those eyes that just didn’t sit right with him but Suga-san himself seems strangely relieved now, the sensual curve of his mouth once again soft with ease.

_Wait, sensual?_

_Where the hell did this come from?_

Daichi looks down from Suga-san’s lips with a guilty start and focuses back on the basil leaves he’s selecting.

Kaede nudges him and passes him the scissors with rounded tips, the only scissors he’s allowed to touch. They’ve made it an habit, for Kaede to help Daichi with dinner and after months of perfectioning this collaboration Kaede knows without having to be told whether Daichi needs carrots or celery, a cloth to dry his hands or a frying pan. They have become a well-oiled, silent machine.

But today the silence doesn’t stick.

Suga-san immediately insisted he at least helps chopping stuff and he’s now perched on a stool by the kitchen island, working dutifully on an onion and subtly dabbing at his teary eyes. Ayame, who usually stays in the living room to watch TV while they cook, is now sitting next to him and talking his ear off about her coach and the team and the ace she always has something not-so-nice to say about.

“She is just so…lazy, and i know she doesn’t really care, i know it. She just picked volleyball because she’s tall and can jump really high!”

Daichi takes the chopped onions from Suga-san and pinches Ayame’s nose. “You shouldn’t talk this way about a teammate.”

Ayame pouts at him but Suga-san fixes him with a skeptic look and raises an eyebrow in that no-nonsense way he has. “As if you liked every single member of your team, Sawamura-san,” then before Daichi can reply he tells Ayame “but still you shouldn’t judge this girl so harshly.”

“Maybe she doesn’t like volleyball as much as you do, she probably didn’t grow up with it like you did but she might learn to love it in her own time,” he says sagely, and steals a piece of carrot from the chopping board.

“Hey! Is this why you offered to help?”

“Come on, Sawamura-san, it was just a teeny tiny bite of carrot…”

“Then what about the slice of ham Kaede gave you five minutes ago?” Ayame says, her eyes dancing with mischief.

“Kaede!”

Daichi turns to face his son and his shoulders drop at the guilt written all over his face.

“Well, i am shocked!” he booms while Ayame and Suga start laughing behind his back, “i hire you to be my…help cook thing, what’s that called?”

“Sous-chef,” Suga-san supplies helpfully.

“I hire you to be my sous-chef and you sneak food behind my back?”

Kaede bites his lip not to burst out laughing too, then a frown appears on his face and he asks “You hired me but where is my money?”

Suga-san howls at that and almost falls down his stool.

Daichi takes two broad steps toward Kaede and fixes him with what would be a very effective stern look if it wasn’t for his mouth, that keeps twitching to open up in a grin. Not to mention the frilly pink ‘kiss the cook’ apron he’s wearing – a gift from his mother, of course.

Kaede stares up at him, amused, and wordlessly offers him a slice of ham. Daichi eats it one bite then picks Kaede in his arms.

He turns around and sees Ayame is still laughing, half a carrot sticking out of her mouth, but Suga-san has fallen quiet. He is standing now, a little far from them and his gaze falls from Ayame to Daichi and Kaede and then to Ayame again and this look, Daichi cannot read it.

He just knows it’s a soft thing, almost tender, with a touch of the sadness from before.

Their eyes meet and without even thinking Daichi throws him a cube of carrot. Suga-san catches it, surprised, then shoves it in his mouth. Just like that the smile is back on his face, more beautiful than it’s ever been.

 

Suga-san is almost in tears when he tastes Daichi’s potstickers.

He takes one distract bite while he’s chatting with Daichi about college volleyball, then stops mid-word and takes another bite in complete silence.

“This is…oh, god yeah that’s the stuff,” he almost moans and his eyes close in complete and utter bliss. “Sawamura-san, could i hire you to be my personal chef?”

Daichi snorts into his glass of water. “I was under the impression that you were just a broke college student with a serious pipes problem…”

“Oh who cares about the pipes?” Suga-san says and steals a gyōza from Ayame’s plate without her noticing, “if i had these treats to get me through the day i could live in a pond and not care one bit!”

Under Daichi’s horrified gaze he adds five more spoons of dried pepper in his sauce and eats an entire ravioli in just one bite. He doesn’t even blink at the zing of it.

He’s quick to catch Daichi staring and with a smile that really – _really_ – should have warned Daichi off he pushes his plate toward him. A challenge. Daichi squares his shoulders and dips his potsticker in Suga-san’s sauce.

It has only just barely grazed Daichi’s tongue and he’s already regretting everything.

It burns. Like absolute hell.

Suga-san rests his chin on his hand and looks at him with bright, dancing eyes and Daichi can’t possibly spit it out, he can’t. It’s a matter of pride.

And so he chews. He chews and when it’s time to swallow tears have already gathered at the corners of his eyes.

“How did you…how…” he croaks. He reaches out for more water but Suga-san tells him to stay put and goes to get some milk.

“Water would just make it worse,” he says. Daichi can’t really believe there is a ‘worse’ but Suga-san sure looks like he has experience with tongue-burning, liver-destroying foods so he decides to trust him for the very last time.

Suga-san throws a smug smile his way as he sits again and that, that’s what really cuts deep into Daichi’s confidence. For a brief moment he considers firing the guy for this low blow. After dinner though Suga-san insists on helping him with the dishes and just like that he manages to regain all the points he’d lost with that smirk.

 

From the living room come Chika Sakamoto’s distinctive voice and Ayame’s low chant of ‘Totoro, it’s Totoro’. Standing side by side Daichi and Suga-san share a brief, amused look and a quick grin.

The DVD the kids are watching is one of the first things Daichi bought with his own money when he was just a kid himself, what now seems like eons ago. They have a newer one of course but for some reason Ayame always ends up picking this, that stops and glitches in a couple of scenes.

Daichi suspects it’s because she likes to adlib when that happens and make her brother laugh.

“THERE HE IS!” Ayame squeals and Suga-san almost drops the plate he’s drying for the surprise.

“Does she do this every time?” he asks Daichi, a hand on his chest and the plate safely laid down on the counter.

“Yes every time,” Daichi tells him with a smirk of his own. He’s gotten so used to it over the years he didn’t even blink. “Every time, at least three times a month for the past, let’s say, seven years?”

Suga-san shakes his head and his bangs fall to cover his eyes. It’s not enough to hide the fond smile gracing his lips.

Daichi passes him another dish to dry and their fingertips touch, for just a moment.

“She is really something else,” Suga-san says, so low Daichi is not sure if he was meant to hear it, “Kaede, too.”

He answers anyway. “Yeah, they are.”

And not just because they are his children.

Daichi looks up, toward the living room. The back of their couch is too tall for him to see them but Daichi knows they are sitting close, almost temple to temple, and muttering the lines, Ayame under her breath and Kaede in his head. Warmth explodes in Daichi’s chest.

He turns back to the dishes and notices Suga-san do the same. He must have followed Daichi’s eyes, or maybe he just looked of his own accord.

Daichi recalls how he found Suga-san and the kids, just a couple of hours earlier, and suddenly he feels the need to say something. Anything.

“Thank you,” he settles for, at last.

_For growing so attached to my children. For taking good care of them when i can’t. For cheering Ayame up and never forcing Kaede to do things he is not comfortable with._

He doesn’t say any of this but he hopes Suga-san hears it any way.

Suga-san stops in the middle of wiping a bowl but doesn’t look up, he just shakes his head and lets out a heavy sigh.

“You don’t need to, that’s just-”

_Just_ _my_ _job_ , he was going to say. He didn’t.

“Especially today i don’t deserve your thanks…” He’s biting his lip in a nervous gesture.

Now it’s Daichi’s turn to shake his head. “If you are referring to what happened with Ayame after Yurika called, you…you really shouldn’t worry about that.”

“You handled it well. I know how Ayame gets after speaking to her mother, she is not…easy to deal with for me either then so how could she be for you, who have only known her for a bunch of weeks?”

They have gotten to the glasses now.

Daichi passes the glass under the stream to wash away the bubbles, then passes it to Suga-san.

“Still, i overstepped,” Suga-san says, stubborn, “i tried to talk to her, no, i tried to _lecture_ her about something i don’t know anything about.”

“Maybe,” Daichi concedes but before the line of Suga-san’s shoulders can drop any further he adds, “but you were right about Yurika. She is not…an indifferent mother, she is not cold or detached.”

_Couldn’t be further away from that._

She hadn’t…she had never expressed interest in having children before she got pregnant with Ayame, that’s true, but since Ayame was born and throughout the mess their marriage was slowly becoming Yurika has been nothing but a wonderful mother. Overprotective, sure, too concerned and anxious, but a wonderful mother who loves her children something fierce and puts them above everything else. For years that had meant putting them above her own happiness too.

And Daichi always let her.

“Sawamura-san?”

Suga-san’s voice comes from miles away, a echo in a well-hidden cave. “Sawamura-san…”

His hand covers Daichi’s and he slips the glass away from his grip. The water is still running, down the back of his hand to fall from his fingers to the metal of the sink.

“She’s a good mother,” Daichi says, and it’s almost harsh, the way he says it. “She really is.”

“If you say so then i believe it,” says Suga-san, simply. Honest.

Daichi nods and takes another glass. “It’s just that she left. For work, of course, three months ago and she’ll be back in a couple of weeks but still she left. And she met that guy…”

That guy. Daichi can’t even remember his name, they just talked once briefly, but he remembers thinking the guy had seemed nice and that he’d been relieved. Yurika deserves only to meet good men, the best of men. But he could have been the christian Jesus incarnated, he could have been the new Buddha and the kids still would have hated his guts.

“So the problem is the guy…” Suga-san says in a whisper.

“The problem is everything,” Daichi comments with a tense shrug of his shoulders. “The problem is me, because i should have had Yurika’s back.”

Suga-san stays quiet, he doesn’t stop drying the glass in his hand. He doesn’t even raise his eyes to look at Daichi, he just stays quiet and waits, so close to him Daichi can feel the warmth radiating off his body.

He licks his lips, dry all of a sudden, and he keeps going. He says it, finally. He admits it. “But i didn’t, not really. I was too relieved she was the one the kids were mad at so i kept quiet. I always kept quiet and let kids be mad all they liked, without explaining the fault was mine too.”

Daichi closes his eyes, just for a moment, and waits for Suga-san to judge him. He waits for the air around them to change, he waits for Suga-san to move away, his warmth gone, and not really say anything because he’s still Daichi’s employee but having it written in his eyes, that he thinks Daichi is a much lesser man than what he leads people to believe.

Suga-san stays put, though. He nudges Daichi with a knuckle and gestures for him to pass the now sparkling glass. He dries it with deft fingers, then calmly puts it in the cupboard.

Daichi can’t take this.

“So?” he urges and his eyes bore holes into Suga-san’s skull.

Suga-san finally turns to look at him but all there is in his gaze is confusion, as though he has no clue what kind of reaction is expected of him.

“So…?” he echoes.

Then he gets it. Or at least Daichi thinks he does because Suga-san’s eyes don’t harden in cold judgement but turn inexplicably soft and the small smile that appears on his face is open.

“Sawamura-san, i’m not going to judge you because you don’t want your children to be mad at you! Nor-” he adds when Daichi opens his mouth to reply, “nor because you would rather they be mad at your ex-wife.”

“That’s normal,” he says, again with a simplicity that has the power to leave Daichi utterly speechless.

Daichi washes a pan, and then another, in silence.

“Totoro come back!” Ayame cries from the living room and Suga-san jumps again.

Another cry from the other room, then poorly-muffled giggles.

Daichi takes advantage of the noise to whisper “Maybe it’s normal but it’s not exactly honorable…”

Suga-san shrugs and takes the pot from Daichi’s hands to dry it. “Maybe, but that hardly makes you a bad man, or a bad father…”

“I could be for all you know…” Daichi insists. He has no idea why he’s being so stubborn about this.

“A bad man?” Suga-san says, “Well, sure. You could be affiliated with the Yakuza for all i know-”

“What?” Now it’s Daichi’s turn to almost drop the pan.

Suga-san continues as though nothing happened, “But a bad father? That i already know you are not.”

He says it with such certainty. Daichi looks up at him, startled, and finds Suga-san’s eyes already on him. In this light they are more gold than copper. Daichi looks down again, at the pot he’s taking centuries to wash.

He clears his throat and tries for a carefree laugh. “You are talking about things you don’t know again, Suga-san. You barely see me with my children…” he has to spit them out, those last words. They won’t leave him.

Suga-san’s elbow brushes against his and from the corner of his eye Daichi sees Suga-san’s hand twitch, hesitate still in mid-air, then close into a fist. Daichi’s stomach does a nervous flip when he realizes Suga-san probably wanted to put his hand on his arm.

“I don’t need to see you with them to know,” Suga-san says instead, his voice pitched low, and rich. “I spend pretty much all my afternoons with your kids, Sawamura-san, and i am not going to pretend to know them like the back of my hand or anything, but i know that for the most part they are happy children.”

“They are both smart and respectful, they are sweet and lively. Basically, they are good kids, and you can see from miles away they’ve been raised well, and with love.”

“Even though…” Daichi closes his eyes and he can feel his body sag on itself but for once he doesn’t care to keep up appearances, he just doesn’t care. He takes a deep breath and tries again. “Even though Kaede is so…shy and closed off, you think…?”

Suga-san puts the cloth down but doesn’t turn to look at him. For this, Daichi is grateful.

“Kaede is a sensitive boy, and talking to someone might be of help i think. It’s clear he has trouble trusting people but that’s something you can work on and still, it doesn’t erase the fact that he is so clearly loved, and that he loves fiercely in return, you and Ayame in particular.”

“But it was us, the divorce…maybe if we hadn’t-” He can’t bring himself to say more. Only now he notices the fierce grip he has on the pan handle, his knuckles have already turned white.

Now Suga-san does turn, and he steps closer to him, so close Daichi can’t not meet his eyes. They are blazing. “Do you really think that growing up in a house where all your parents do is scream and fight, or where they don’t talk at all would have been any better?”

Daichi doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know.

“Kaede’s trust issues can be fixed but because i know that he can count on you, because i know he’ll have your support no matter what.”

“Sawamura-san, look at these walls,” he says suddenly and points to each of Kaede’s drawings hung in the kitchen, “think of all the volleyball techniques you’ve taught Ayame. Just today she told me you’ve never missed even one of her matches. And last week? Last week you got to leave work early, _for_ _once_ , and the first thing you did was run to your children.”

Daichi can still hear them laughing on the other side of the door. There’s a weight in his throat he can’t really explain. His eyes are itchy, he breaks away from the pull of Suga-san’s gaze to blink at the sink.

Suga-san lets him, but keeps talking. “I’m sure you’ve made mistakes, maybe even big ones, that i really can’t know of, but i know you love your children, you show it to them every day. And i also know that, at the end of the day, there’s _nothing_ more important than this.”

Then he falls quiet. He takes the pan still under water and starts drying again as though nothing has happened. As though the ground beneath both their feet has not just shifted.

 

The movie ends and Suga-san says his goodbyes quietly. The kids are already half-asleep so he just presses a kiss on Ayame’s cheek and waves at Kaede before walking out.

Daichi follows him.

“Are you, um, are you sure you don’t need a lift?” he asks, hands in his pockets.

Suga-san smiles at him and it’s the same smile as usual, open and warm and breathtaking. The kind that makes you wanna smile back even on the worst days. “No, thank you. One of my flatmates texted me, he said he’s out with some friends in a bar near here so i’m just going to join him, see what’s up. Besides, the kids look about ready to conk out.”

“Yeah, yeah you’re right.”

They look at each other for a moment, without saying anything. Daichi doesn’t know _what_ to say, after all the things he did say earlier he’s not even sure if he wats to run and hide away in his room for a day or two or bask in the warmth Suga-san seems to bring wherever he goes just for a little longer.

In the end Suga-san chooses for both of them. He takes a step away, he murmurs “Goodnight, Sawamura-san.”

There’s something in his voice that makes Daichi’s skin tingle.

He’s already near the gate when Daichi finally manages a reply. “Call me Daichi,” he says, then he closes the door behind him, in sudden hurry.

 

*

 

 

Despite Tooru’s protests and Hajime’s almost pleading texts Suga doesn’t join them at the bar. He’s not in the mood.

He goes home instead. He cuddles with Onyx on the couch for a little while then takes off his nice pants, his even nicer shirt and goes to bed.

In the dark he tries it, tastes it on his tongue.

Daichi. Daichi. _Daichi_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sensual.
> 
> Ok so i decided to anticipate the update day to celebrate Suga's birthday because, as you know, it's a worldwide holiday and i couldn't just let it pass by without doing anything. I hope you all liked the chapter and that it did this grand day justice!  
> One last thing, an amazingly talented artist drew pieces inspired by this fic and days after i'm still so overwhelmed with joy i'm getting weepy just thinking about it! So here these beauties are: [this](http://trashcatcloset.tumblr.com/post/145491888071/in-tonights-episode-of-love-songs-to-fanfics) has Suga cuddling with Onyx (seriously how cute is that??) and Daichi reading the jellyfish post-it, and [this](http://trashcatcloset.tumblr.com/post/145667515186/these-dont-do-this-chapter-justice-it-was-such-a) is of the infamous pigtail/bobby pins scene from chapter 4. Make sure to check those and the rest of this artist's work out because everything is truly A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.


	6. And the trees are filled with memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A speech is prepared, we catch glimpses of the past, and everything is awkward.

For days ~~Sawam~~ Daichi-san avoids him.

For days all Suga gets are quick ‘goodbye’s and ‘see you tomorrow’s, averted gazes and dismissive nods. For days he leaves that house with hunched shoulders and a thousand voices screaming in his head that he messed up. He _must_ have messed up somehow, said something stupid, or offensive, or insensitive during their talk in the kitchen without even noticing. Surely without meaning to.

He goes back on it every night, while he’s alone in his bed – always alone. Plays their conversation again and again, stops on every syllable, on every pause. Nothing stands out to him. He regrets every word he’s ever said. He curses Daichi-san for not saying anything, for closing into himself just when Suga was starting to get to know him. He tells himself off for being a moron and hides his face in a pillow to muffle his frustrated groans.

It depends on the mood he’s in.

And the worst thing is that recently their interactions had been getting so much easier. Suga’s had his fair share of employers he didn’t like, and who didn’t like him back, and as long as his work wasn’t affected by it, well, he could deal. He doesn’t want to deal now.

His eyes close to his bedroom ceiling and he sees Daichi-san standing in front of him, his shoulders trembling under the weight he insists on carrying all by himself. He sees him in the dim light of the kitchen, looking younger than he’s ever known him and older than the earth itself. He sees him – because, just for a moment, he’d _seen_ him - and all he wants to do is reach out. Take some of that weight for himself.

He doesn’t want to deal with the possibility of Daichi-san being wary of him, because of whatever stupid thing he might have said.

Their tentative attempts at conversations, slowly turning lively with banter and the calm that comes with forgetting where it is that they really stand. This, he wants it back. With interests.

So he guesses all that’s left for him to do is apologize, for whatever thing he might have done.

 

*

 

 

“So if i said anything that caused you offense, know that i’m so, so very sorry and i meant no-”

“Um, Kou-chan?”

Suga looks away from his reflection in the bathroom mirror to meet Tooru’s eyes. “Yes?”

“What are you doing?”

Suga huffs his bangs away from his face and gives Tooru an awkward shrug. “I’m practicing my apology to Dai, um, to Sawamura-san.”

“You need to practice an apology?” Tooru snickers, misjudges the distance between the scorching iron of the hair straightener and his ear and howls in pain.

“Stupid piece of cra-a-ap!”

Suga rolls his eyes and makes him sit on the hamper by the sink. Just another Tuesday morning in the House of Lost Causes.

“I tell you all the time to be careful with that bloody thing!” he says, pushing on Tooru’s shoulder to make him sit still already. He puts some toothpaste on his finger and starts applying it on the tip of Tooru’s ear, which is already turning a very nasty red. “Don’t i tell him all the time, Taka?”

The sound of water falling down and hitting the shower curtain. Then a muffled, mildly resigned “Yes, you do tell him all the time, Suga-san.”

“See?” Suga fixes Tooru’s hair with a plain, brown bobby pin so it won’t get sticky with toothpaste and flicks him on the cheek, gently. “All done!”

“Yeah, yeah” Tooru grumbles something under his breath and scowls. “I have to meet Iwa-chan in half an hour!”

“So?”

“So, he can’t see me like this!”

Suga lets out an undignified snort and looks around for a comb. “I’m sure Hajime has seen you in a much worse shape, Oikawa. Just ask him to nibble only one ear for once.”

Poorly suffocated laughter from the shower.

Tooru throws a murderous glare Suga’s way. Suga raises his eyebrow, utterly unimpressed, and keeps fighting with the knots that have appeared during the night. Stupid wavy hair, how is it possible that he brushed them less than 12 hours ago and they already look like a bird nest?

“You never answered me, by the way.” Tooru all but throws the hair straightener back in its box and hip-checks Suga to make room in front of the mirror.

As if he’s not already occupying most of the space available.

“Answered what?” Better pretend he has no clue what the guy is talking about.

“Why do you need to practice an apology?” Tooru says with an annoyed huff – he hates having to repeat himself - , but his gaze is sharp and his ears – both the good and the bad – are on full alert to fix on any hesitation, any awkward pause Suga might take to answer.

Suga stops brushing his hair, even though he’s not remotely close to being done, and picks his toothbrush. “Just, you know, it’s my boss and i think i kind of messed up and i can’t sound like a kid caught with his hands in the cookie jar, i need to sound professional and…”

A s soon as he runs out of bullshit he sticks his toothbrush in his mouth. If he keeps on rambling he just knows he’ll end up saying stupid shit like ‘’the man i work for is very handsome and he has the power to make me feel nervous by simply looking me in the eyes for a moment too long’’.

Which, of course, is the truth. But Tooru doesn’t need to know that, not at all. Nobody does.

Tooru is watching him like an hawk, the bottle of cologne in his hand ignored.

“How did you mess up?”

Suga makes a show of mumbling around his toothbrush, a rivulet of water mixed with paste running down his mouth. He’s not really trying to say anything.

Tooru nods as though he understood anyway and with a tone that tries to be casual and fails abysmally he whispers “You do know that you’re blushing, right?”

_Damn it._

They stare at each other through the mirror, Tooru with poorly-veiled triumph painted all over his features, Suga with growing terror.

Tooru takes a step toward him, then another. The edge of his mouth curves in a dangerously knowing smirk.

With bated breath Suga realizes there’s only one thing he can do now to save himself.

He turns toward Tooru and starts talking, again, not really saying anything. Toothpaste and water-y foam fly everywhere with his words, in direction of Tooru’s immaculate – and truly atrocious – shirt. Some of them stick to the fabric and run toward the hem.

“NO KOUSHI NO!” Tooru screeches and steps away from him, all but runs outside the bathroom to go get changed.

Before he leaves though, he stops by the door and with a face that promises retribution he declares “This isn’t over!”

He even waves his finger around right in Suga’s face, risking to poke him in the eye.

Suga watches him go feeling strangely smug, and spits in the sink.

He’s still celebrating his victory when a wet arm sticks out from behind the shower curtain and stealthily tugs at his shirt, almost giving him a heart attack.

“Taka!” Suga yelps and drops the comb on the floor. Glares at the shadow in the shower and slaps the arm in front of him.

“Towel, please?” asks Taka between a chuckle.

Suga considers not giving it to him and just walking out but with Tooru already on the war path he needs to have at least one ally that doesn’t walk on four legs. So he hands Taka a towel and watches him get out of the shower with his arms crossed on his chest.

Taka’s body always leaves him in a state of utter admiration and detestable jealousy. The perfectly sculpted abs, broad chest, bulging biceps…Suga could follow Michael Phelps’ all protein diet and work out 12 hours a day every day and he’d never manage to gain half of Taka’s muscle mass. And if he did, let’s be honest, he would only look ridiculous.

He sighs and gets back to trying to tame the shapeless nightmare that is his hair. One of his roommates has the muscles of a body-builder, the other one is so canonically handsome he causes men and women alike to gape at him and walk into lamp posts.

He tugs viciously at a knot and tears gather at the corners of his eyes. As if he needed one more reason to feel like the ugliest of ducklings.

A hand covers his own and takes the comb away from him. Before he can protest Taka is already dragging the comb between his hair, with surprising skill and unsurprising gentleness.

Taka is gentle in everything he does.

Suga closes his eyes and lets him work through knots and split ends.

“You want to talk about it?” Taka asks at one point, without stopping the soothing motion of his free hand on Suga’s scalp.

Suga lets out another sigh and answers with a single ‘no’.

“Alright.”

“What about you? Do you want to talk about that…that Hinata guy?”

“No.”

Suga opens his eyes and finds Taka already looking at him in the mirror. They share a smile that’s not quite happy, but has the power to make Suga relax all the same.

“Alright.”

“Alright.”

A pause and then, “But i do want to know one thing, Suga-san.”

“Shoot.”

“What did you do to get rid of Oikawa-san so fast?”

Five minutes later Oikawa passes them by to finally go meet Hajime and finds them both leaning on the sink to keep from falling, bent double with laughter.

 

*

 

 

It’s instinct – probably - that leads Suga’s feet to the station hours before he’s scheduled to pick up Kaede from kindergarten.

All throughout his meeting with Fukunaga-san he’d thrown longing looks outside the window, where the sun was shining comfortingly warm and bright, and for the entire morning the sun seemed to almost follow him around, everywhere he went.

It got into his eyes while he was reading passages of his thesis to Fukunaga-san. It warmed the skin of his nape as he was hunching down to correct sentences and research quotes. It found him in the library, where it winked at him, almost conspiratorial, reflecting annoyingly on his reading glasses.

So as soon as he breaks free, one chapter less to write and a bust of energy the likes he hasn’t experienced since he first started college, he hops on the first train directed to the centre of the city.

He’s in front of Mrs. Devaux’s shop before he even realizes.

The bell tinkles silver, announcing his arrival, and he hasn’t even stepped foot inside quite yet that Mrs. Devaux is already on him, an impossibly wide, wrinkly smile on her face.

“Koushi-kun!” she says, breathless with what Suga hopes is elation and not fatigue.

For a moment she looks about to hug him, her hands trembling slightly on his shoulders but then she must think better of it because, after an another pause, she simply squeezes his arms – with a little too much force, to be honest – and pushes a lock of hair away from his face.

“Koushi-kun, it’s so lovely to see you!”

She says it with such eager honesty and Suga’s stomach twists in guilt. He should have come back sooner, or at the very least called. It’s obvious Mrs. Devaux has waited, wanted for him to.

He bows his head in a greeting that is deep down an apology and covers one of Mrs. Devaux’s hands with his own.

“It’s good to see you too, Mrs. Devaux. I’m sorry for coming here without notice.”

She waves him off, swats his formalities away like she would an annoying fly. “Nonsense, please have a seat!”

She guides him to the counter, all covered with old newspapers and a beautiful array of flowers.

“I was working on a flower arrangement to show one of my clients. She’s getting married in a couple of months…”

Suga examines the beautiful, light pink lisianthus and white hydrangea, the calla lilies and baby’s-breath one by one, a small smile on his face. “Are they for a centerpiece?”

“No, for the bouquet, we haven’t gotten far enough to talk centerpieces yet…” the weariness in her tone suggests this bride-to-be isn’t an easy one to satisfy.

“Oh well then i’m afraid i can’t help,” Suga sits back on his chair and draws his hands up, “my boss back in Miyagi never trusted me enough to help with bouquets. And i agreed with him.”

Mrs. Devaux laughs at him and disappears in the back. “It requires another kind of talent, bouquet design,” she is only half joking. “Would you like something to drink, Koushi-kun? It’s too warm for tea but i have juice, maybe a coke…”

“Just water is fine!” Suga calls out and despite his previous words he starts pairing up the flowers in all possible combinations.

Mrs. Devaux returns with a tray in her hands to find him trafficking with a simple red ribbon and half a dozen calla lilies in his hands.

“I see how little you trust yourself, Koushi-kun…” she tells him, laughter in her voice.

Suga gives her an awkward smile and puts the flowers back down. “I was just giving it a try,” he mutters, “but i don’t care much for any of these flowers, to tell you the truth.”

He makes space on the counter for the cookies and the beautiful carafe of water and immediately shoves an amaretto in his mouth. The taste of almonds explodes on his tongue and his eyes close in utter bliss.

“Oh, these are magnificent!”

“Thank you darling,” Mrs. Devaux tells him with a smile, then gives the callas a calculating look. “Your idea wasn’t bad, you know?” she tells him after a long pause and deftly ties the calla lilies with the red ribbon Suga had thrown on the table in favor of the cookies.

“Simple, elegant.”

“Hardly inspired, though,” adds Suga through a mouthful of cantucci.

“That might be true, but i’m hardly feeling inspired by this selection of flowers myself. Pink on white on more white…”

“Talk about boring.”

“Exactly!”

Mrs. Devaux finally takes a sit, slowly dragging her thumb across the rich petals of the lisianthus. A fog falls to cover her eyes as she looks at the flowers and Suga’s sure she’s not really seeing them anymore. Her thoughts have clearly turned inward.

He takes another cookie in silence.

A customer, a man in his fifties looking for flowers to give his expecting daughter, comes and goes with a lovely plant of white azalea in his hands. And then another, a young man who forgot his mother’s birthday but somehow remembers her favourite flower. Poppies.

“Now that would be an inspired choice for a bouquet!” Suga tells Mrs. Devaux as soon as the guy has left.

She throws him a curious look and her lips curve into a crooked smile that speaks of nostalgia. “Poppies, uh?”

“Yes, just pair them with…i don’t know, some white forget-me-nots and they make your entire look!”

“I chose white hyndragea,” she says, and her expression livens up, if only just a little. “For my second marriage, i mean. Poppies and white hyndragea.”

“Oh,” Suga is not sure what to say to that so he just mutters an uncertain, “that’s lovely…”

“It was. The marriage? Not so much.” She wrinkles her nose in what almost looks like disgust. “We barely lasted two years.”

“And what about-” Suga bites his tongue before he can finish the question. It wouldn’t be polite to ask about-

“My first marriage?”

Yeah, that.

“Um…” he stutters eloquently.

She laughs. “It’s alright, Koushi-kun.”

She walks to the lisianthus, blue ones this time, then adds a couple of white freesia for contrast.

“That was a beautiful wedding,” she remembers, her eyes lit up with something that comes from deep within. “And an even better marriage.”

Suga doesn’t ask what broke it apart, the wistfulness in her tone is enough of an answer. Nothing did, simple as that.

He takes the flowers from her and, just the way she’d arranged them, he puts them in a high-necked vase.

“I’m sorry,” he says instead, his heart heavy for too many reasons.

One of his first memories, hazy and colored in sepia, is of his father’s eyes, frantic, looking everywhere outside of the kitchen window, waiting for someone that would never come back. The lines on his face, much lighter then, much more shallow than they are now, creating angry, black marks across his forehead, near his unsmiling mouth.

Grief, Suga has no idea what grief looks like, but he’s always pictured it this way: daddy by the window, always by the window, telling 4 years old him that no, they can’t go out to play today.

“It’s alright, Koushi-kun,” Mrs. Devaux says again, and again it’s grief that turns her nightingale voice heavy. She puts the vase on the shelf behind the counter, that is empty but for the picture of a woman. Black and white in a frame of gold.

Suga squints at it.

Long, light hair. Full lips. A heart-shaped face and a small, pointy nose. He thinks he sees the shadow of a mole near the corner of her mouth but Mrs. Devaux fixes the flowers and the leaves fall to cover the woman, her hair, her forehead, the wide smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

Just for a second Suga’s fingers itch to take it. Just for a second then Mrs. Devaux turns back to him and with a trembling voice she asks “Did you come by just to keep me company?”

And suddenly he remembers the sketch in his bag, the list of plants he’d made while he was on the train. In his haste to get them he almost trips on the leg of his chair.

Mrs. Devaux laughs at his clumsiness and that simple sound tugs at Suga’s heartstrings, a skillful harpist composing a familiar melody he can’t remember the name of.

 

The white iris picked by Ayame, red azalea and a stunning bush of pink camellias. Suga helps Mrs. Devaux load her little business truck with some of the plants he and the kids already agreed on, then leaves to pick up Kaede with the promise to see her again in about two hours.

“I’ll call my friend who works at the plant nursery and tell him to bring me the prettiest wisteria he has, and i’ll see about some ivy too,” she tells him by the door, phone already in hand.

“Thank you so much, Mrs. Devaux!”

Suga gives her a toothy smile and leans down to press a kiss on her cheek, without even thinking.

They both freeze at the gesture and Mrs. Devaux blinks at him once, twice, looking positively flabbergasted. For his part all Suga can seem to do is mutter a quick goodbye and leave, his stride almost a jog with his hurry.

He has no idea where the hell that came from.

 

*

 

 

Suga never talked to Ayame about Mrs. Devaux, except for a few mentions in passing, but it’s clear Kaede has told his sister more than enough, if her beaming smile at the news that ‘’the flower lady’’ – Kaede’s nickname for her, apparently – is going to come help them with the garden is any indication.

When the doorbell rings they all run to answer and Suga is 99.9% sure he hears Ayame ask her brother “Do you really think she’s brought cookies?”

So yeah, Kaede definitely spilled some beans. Probably all of them.

There’s still a shadow of awkwardness and uncertainty in Mrs. Devaux’s smile as she greets Suga but she soon relaxes at the sight of the children flanking him. She waves cheerfully at Kaede, who waves back, and positively coos at Ayame.

“Oh, you must be Ayame,” she says, taking Ayame’s hands in hers, “you are as beautiful as the flower you’re named after!”

Ayame blushes to the root of her hair and looks down at her feet, mutters a soft ‘thank you’ to the ground. Suga stares at her for a moment, his mouth shamelessly agape. He’s never seen Ayame act so…shy. Hell, he didn’t even know the word ‘shy’ existed in Ayame’s book.

“I made cookies for you, i hope it’s alright…” Mrs. Devaux says and the kids all but light up at the news.

Suga recollects himself from the shock and gives her a warm smile. “Absolutely, truth be told i’m pretty sure these two would have been devastated if you hadn’t.”

“That’s a lot of pressure you’ve just put on my old shoulders, Koushi-kun.”

“I apologize,” he says but Mrs. Devaux is already looking in her bag, which is big enough Japan and a considerable part of China could fit inside. With a small cheer she takes out a lovely tin box shaped like a windmill but inside, instead of boring Danish butter cookies, there’s a beautiful selection of chocolate chips cookies, macarons and italian amaretti.

Ayame looks ready to weep in joy.

_And she hasn’t even tried them yet_ , Suga thinks to himself and with a lightning-quick move he takes a cookie and shoves it in his mouth.

“Suga-san!” Ayame exclaims, sounding positively shocked. Maybe she’d thought he’d leave all the cookies to her and Kaede. Ah, the naiveté of youth.

He makes to take another but Mrs. Devaux slaps his wrist, lightly, and gives him a reproachful look. “You already had some at the shop, Koushi-kun!”

“But i’m a growing boy!” he tries to protest, to no avail.

Mrs. Devaux hands the tin box to Ayame with a conspiratorial wink and Ayame hugs it to her chest like it’s the Holy Grail, thanks her with that freaky soft voice.

It’s only when Mrs. Devaux turns her back to her to get the plants from the truck that she shows her true colors again and pokes her tongue at Suga.

Suga walks by her to help Mrs. Devaux and whispers “Well then i guess next time i make cupcakes i’ll let only your father and Kaede have them.”

“Noooooo!”

Kaede whoops under his breath, fist up in the air, and throws his sister a smug look.

“Alright, alright,” Suga puts a hand on Ayame’s shoulder and motions for Kaede to get back inside “i’ll help Mrs. Devaux with the plants. You two go get changed, you don’t want to get your uniforms all dirty, right?”

“I don’t really care,” Ayame says with a nonplussed shrug of her shoulders.

“Well, i do and i’m sure your father does too, so go upstairs and wear your jeans overalls, the ones with paint stains everywhere.”

She and Kaede are already halfway up the stairs when Suga adds “And don’t forget the hats!”

They both pretend not to hear.

 

Mrs. Devaux almost drops the azalea when her gaze falls to the garden. Suga is pretty sure he sees a veil of tears shine in her eyes.

“If it’s any consolation it’s a jewel now compared to how it was just weeks ago,” he tells her unhelpfully, with a tinge of poorly-repressed horror in his voice. The state in which he first found the Sawamura garden still gives him nightmares. Or it would if he weren’t so busy dreaming about weird-ass carousels spinning faster than a race car.

After moments of mournful silence Mrs. Devaux puts a hand on his arm and squeezes it ecouragingly. “You are doing God’s work, my boy,” she adds, not without irony.

“Believe me, i know…” he replies in the same tone.

The wood panels of the backyard patio squeak. Suga looks up and an elated smile blooms on his face.

_They both look so cute!_

Except for a few similar features, like the shape of their nose and their high foreheads, Ayame and Kaede don’t really look like siblings to the superficial eye. Ayame is all her father, tanned skin, a strong jaw she has yet to grow into, and a sort of steady presence it’s rare to see in a girl this young.

Kaede is the exact opposite. He has most of his mother’s features, the pointy chin, the round eyes with prominent creases, the thick, messy hair are all there but where in Yurika-san they are hardened by high cheekbones and defined with age, in Kaede, with his soft cheeks and perpetual stormy expression, they almost make him look like a –very reluctant – woodland creature.

But now that they are standing side by side, in matching jeans overalls, yellow hats and murderous expressions they look like two peas in a pod.

“Aw goodness!”

Completely ignoring Ayame’s protests and Kaede’s scowl Suga fishes his phone out of his pocket and takes a swift picture. “You look so adorable!” he coos and saves it in his ‘favourites’ folder.

“We do not!” Ayame screeches and bangs her foot on the ground. “I look like a canary with this thing on my head!”

Kaede nods in agreement and makes to take off the hat.

“No, don’t! Ok, first of all, canaries are adorable. And second of all, it’s important to wear some sort of protection on your head when the sun is so hot!”

“Then how come you are not wearing any?” Ayame insists and crosses her arms over her chest.

“B-because i, um, because i’m a grown up?”

Now that’s debatable.

“Not good enough!”

“Oh, come on Ayame, i forgot to bring one, ok?”

“No, it’s not ok-”

“Alright!” Mrs. Devaux exclaims and they all jump at her tone, “i have a spare sun hat in my truck somewhere. If Suga-san promises to wear it can we please start working on the garden?”

It’s clear the bare ground the garden consists of is bothering her. Ayame and Kaede nod at her proposal and two minutes later she presents to Suga a sun hat made of straw, with large brims and a lovely pale blue ribbon.

Suga looks at the triumphant grins on the kids’ faces, raises his chin in challenge and puts the hat on.

The kids stare at him, then at each other, then at him again and start laughing.

“You look so good!” Ayame wheezes.

“Yeah, i bet…”

A warmth that has now become familiar settles inside Suga’s chest and he scratches at it, the spot right above his heart, as if that could be enough to make it go away. Pour out and away from him like tears, and fall to the ground to help flowers bloom.

It doesn’t.

 

“The wisteria will look lovely in that spot.” Mrs. Devaux points at the far left corner of the garden, where the tall, wooden fence offers a lovely shade in the late afternoon. Suga nods and passes a hand on his sweaty forehead.

It’s so hot today it feels like summer. Truth be told, he’d rather forget all about the wisteria and plant himself under that shade, but he doubts he’d make a pretty picture. It might alarm the neighbors too, seeing a weird guy sprouting up from the ground like a bamboo cane.

Or they could make up a whole tale about him. A modern days Momotarou.

Mrs. Devaux lets out an unlikely snort and throws him a fond look. “You got earth all over your face,” she informs him, laughter already bubbling in her chest.

Suga makes to wipe his face with the sleeve of his shirt…only to discover that’s dirty too.

“Um…” he says, loquacious as ever.

Mrs. Devaux shakes her head in faux reproach and pulls out a handkerchief from an inside pocket of her work jacket. She did the same when Kaede sneezed at the shop. It’s such an old lady thing to do, carrying embroidered handkerchiefs everywhere you go. His nana does it too, in fact she always buys plain white handkerchiefs to embroider herself, each with a different kind of bird.

Mrs. Devaux’s has flowers on it – how fitting -, forget-me-nots if he’s not mistaken.

Suga reaches out to take it, a thank you already on his lips, but Mrs. Devaux doesn’t hand it to him. Instead she raises her arm and wipes Suga’s temple herself.

Suga freezes. Her touch is gentle, unbearably so, but it’s…it feels a little too intimate for his taste. He can only remember his father doing it, his nana too sometimes, when he was a kid and would get food all over himself.

Not to seem rude he waits till she’s done to take a step away but her expression falls all the same.

He regrets it immediately.

“I’m sorry…” she whispers, her hand still raised, her pristine handkerchief all dirty now.

“I’m sorry too,” Suga says. He’s not sure for what, if for moving away or for never really knowing how to behave around her.

In silence they bring the wisteria to the spot Mrs. Devaux picked and start digging.

 

“Teru-teru-bozu, teru bozu, do make tomorrow a sunny day…”

Suga looks up from the ground he’s moving and smiles.

Ayame and Kaede have forgotten all about shovels and holes to dig, it took them less than an hour, and are now twirling around the azalea, sometime attempting a geisha dance, sometime limiting themselves to random jumpy steps.

“Like the sky in a dream sometime,” Ayame sings with a funny, squeaky voice, “if it's sunny I'll give you a golden bell.”

Kaede giggles and makes his sister do a spin.

Suga digs his shovel deep in the earth till it stays upright by itself and leans on it, chin in hands and eyes on his kids.

_The_ kids. Not his, just the.

“Teru-teru-bozu, teru bozu, do make tomorrow a sunny day,” Kaede’s voice joins Ayame’s and Suga holds his breath to hear him better.

Ayame grins and lets him sing the next line by himself “If you make my wish come true we'll drink lots of sweet sake!”

Silence falls as Kaede and Ayame look at each other. “I don’t remember how it ends…” Ayame says to her brother and they both crack up again.

Suga hides a smile behind his hand and keeps digging. It’s too bad it ended so soon. He shakes his head and tries to remember how the rest of the song goes.

_We’ll drink lots of sweet sake and then…something about crying and clouds…_

He taps the rhythm with his finger on the shovel but just as something, a verse, resurfaces he notices Mrs. Devaux’s eyes on him.

“Is there a problem?” he asks.

She blushes under her impeccable make-up and gets back to work. “No, of course not,” she tries to tell him. “I was just curious…h-how long have you been their nanny?”

He doubts that’s what has had her so concerned with him. He answers anyway. “About a month.”

She seems surprised. “Really? That’s not long…”

“Yeah, i know. I’m still trying to get to know them, and to get them to know me…”

Together they lift the wisteria up by its main trunk and deposit it in the hole.

“I think you’re doing a good job so far,” Mrs. Devaux says and cleans her hands on her dark green overalls. “I never would have said it’s been so little since you first met them.”

Suga gives her an awkward shrug and shovels some compost in the ground around the plant.

Truth be told, there are moments he finds it impossible to remember a time when they weren’t such a constant, huge part of his life. Some other times instead, like that day in Ayame’s room, he’ll get slapped in the face with the reality of how little he knows of them.

And that reality, acknowledging that reality bothers him more than he’d like to admit.

He fills the hole with the ground they’d moved quickly, with a little too much energy and too little care, and steps back to look at his work.

This wisteria plant is pretty but still fairly young, it might take a year or two before it flowers. With a sharp twist in his chest he realizes he might not be here to see it when it finally does. After all this is just a job, and one that doesn’t come with a regular contract.

He bites his lip till it turns white and moves sharply around the plant, his back always to Mrs. Devaux.

“Suga-san!” Ayame calls him and he almost trips on the shovel for the surprise.

There’s a blush on her cheeks as she runs to him with Kaede in tow and her clothes are dirtier than ever. She is almost out of breath, which, considering the energy reserve she has, is really quite the feat. Suga smiles at her but he’s not sure how convincing it looks.

“What is it?”

“Kaede and i were talking,” she points at her brother, who immediately looks down and blushes, “and we were wandering-”

“I think you mean ‘wondering’, Ayame-chan.”

“Yeah that! We were wondering what your favourite flower is!”

Red spider lilies growing outside his bedroom window in Miyagi. The elderly people in the neighborhood talking behind their hands.

_“No wonder she left, the curse is deeply rooted inside that house.”_

No wonder she left.

Suga looks down, into Ayame’s twinkling eyes, and answers with “Frangipani”.

“That’s a lovely choice, Koushi-kun,” Mrs. Devaux says but by the tightness of her smile she must have noticed the darkening of his expression, as fleeting as it had been.

“Which one is that?” It’s Ayame again.

Suga has to dig into his pockets for his phone and show it to her and Kaede. They seem very pleased with his answer.

“It’s so pretty!” Ayame tells him with one of her usual blinding smiles, “It fits you!”

Kaede nods in agreement and his lips are curved upwards too.

The line of Suga’s shoulders relaxes, he hadn’t even noticed it was so tense. He kneels on the ground and boops both their noses. “Why did you ask?”

Ayame and Kaede share an excited look and Kaede nods again. The message comes across loud and clear: tell him, tell him, tell him.

Ayame gestures at the garden, nothing more than soil with a few plants sprouting out seemingly out of nowhere. “Because we need to have it, duh!”

“It’s your favourite flower, we need to have Suga-san’s favourite flower in our garden!”

_Our garden._

A light breeze blows, and Suga’s bangs fall to cover his face. He looks down, at the sun-kissed ground, bare now, but not for long. He looks down at his shoes, covered in dirt, and finds them just a blur of color. He blinks at them, blinks away the water drops – not tears, how can they be tears – and laughs, low and a little constricted.

“Yeah, i’d…i’d like that.”

With a shiver that starts from the soles of his feet Suga realizes it’s already growing roots, this feeling, this warmth, and enveloping his heart.

 

The sky has just turned a brilliant orange when Daichi-san gets home.

Ayame and Kaede are lazying around on the checkered picnic tablecloth and munching cookies, after hours of ‘’hard work’’ Suga was more than happy to grant them a pause. He and Mrs. Devaux, on the other hand, are still intent on trimming the camellia and chattering between them on the best way to keep it healthy. Only Ayame hears the sound of the back door falling open and her squeal of joy at her father’s arrival almost makes Suga drop the shears right on his foot.

“Daddy!”

“Ayame, no, you’re all dirty!” Suga tries to say but sure enough, he’s too late. Ayame has already climbed on Daichi-san and is now demanding a kiss. Daichi-san, for his part, looks unbothered by the smudges of soil she’s leaving all over his sparkling white button-up and complies easily.

Kaede tries to be more sensible and after throwing a look at Suga he greets his father with just a wave and one of his rare, breathtaking smiles. Daichi-san smiles, waves back at him then picks him up with his free arm and kisses him obnoxiously loud on the cheek.

Suga may or may not let out a sigh at the sight, that’s not for you to know.

“Hey, there is life in this garden!” Daichi-san exclaims, his eyes going from one plant to another, only to stop on Suga and Mrs. Devaux and - Suga’s probably imagining it though - linger on Suga’s hunched form.

Mrs. Devaux stands up and brushes the dirt off her pants but she has yet to take a step that Daichi-san - with his children clinging to his side like koala bears to a tree - is already to her.

Suga introduces them from his spot on the ground. He doesn’t feel confident enough to stand up right now.

“This is Mrs. Devaux, Daichi-san. She owns that flower shop i told you about…”

“Of course, of course,” says Daichi-san with a charming smile, “thank you for taking Kaede and Suga-san in, that day. Kaede is terrible when he’s sick- ouch” he rubs his side in the spot Kaede just pinched, “and thank you for your work, your plants are lovely.”

“As if you would know if they weren’t.” Suga whispers to himself, but not low enough apparently judging by the children’s snickers and the glare Daichi-san throws his way.

They almost smile at each other, then, as they remember the awkwardness Daichi-san has forced on them in the past few days, they both fall silent and look away. Suga at the camellia in front of him, Daichi-san at the garden.

Mrs. Devaux glances at them both, a crease high on her forehead. “Thank you, Sawamura-san,” she interjects, a little uncertain, “we are almost done here for today so-”

“Mind if i help?” he asks all of a sudden, his voice booming to cover the uncertainty.

He looks down at Suga again and this time he doesn’t avert his gaze. “Do you, um, do you need help?”

Suga doesn’t, but this is the first attempt at conversation Daichi-san has made in 4 days and like hell he’s going to waste the opportunity. “Yes, absolutely!” he says, maybe with a little too much eagerness.

Daichi-san sighs, almost in relief. “Ok, then. Let me just go get changed.” And he disappears inside.

Suga fixes his eyes on the ground not to follow him, and misses the knowing look Mrs. Devaux throws his way.

“With another pair of hands at your disposal i doubt you’re going to need me anymore, Koushi-kun” she tells him and makes her way to the kids “so i think i’ll take a short break too, now.”

She sits on the tablecloth, next to Ayame, and helps herself with one of the cookies she brought.

Suga nods at her distractedly and rights his sun hat with nervous fingers.

 

As expected Daichi-san is clumsy in his gestures, throwing questioning looks at Suga whenever he’s about to do something.

“Are you sure i need to cut this? It’s an entire section of the branch!”

“Yes, i’m sure. If the plant is too thick with flowers and blossoms it risks to attract more parasites and sunlight won’t be able to reach every part of it. Now cut!”

“Do not rush me!”

In the end it’s mostly up to Suga to do the pruning, but Daichi-san doesn’t miss any of his gestures, his brows furrowed as though he’s trying to memorize every shift, every twist of Suga’s fingers.

“It really looks great, the garden i mean,” he says at one point, tentative, embarrassed.

Suga shrugs and cuts. Like he said to Mrs. Devaux earlier, it’s great compared to what was before, sure, but it’s still only bare ground plus a bunch of plants. It’s far from finished, or harmonious, far from great. But…

“It’s a start,” Suga answers at last and he’s not sure why he sounds so wistful.

“Ok, now we can transfer it in the soil.”

Daichi-san lifts the camellia from its trunk and sets it in the hole Kaede and Ayame had dug earlier. He and Suga fill it again with ground and soil and with every movement the backs of their hands touch. Their knuckles knock together. Daichi-san’s fingertips brush against the inside of Suga’s wrist. They soon stop apologizing for it.

“My mother will be happy to hear there’s something other than garbage and weeds here…”

Suga nods. Now he can’t come up with anything to say. He’s wanted to get Daichi-san to talk to him for days and now that he is, now that the man is willing to talk to him, his mind is completely blank. His tongue is tied in a double knot. His skin is breaking into goosebumps.

Daichi-san tries again. “What plants are these, by the way? I recognize the iris of course, for Ayame, but the rest…”

Suga tells him and in the matter of a minute silence falls again. Suga bites his lip. His hands clench into nervous fists around the soil until it falls through his fingertips. Fuck, what’s the matter with him?

“What do they mean?” Daichi-san asks, again, and he sounds almost desperate to get something – anything - out of him.

That makes it two of them.

“Well, um,” Suga racks his brain for the things he’s supposed to know, then points at the ivy leaning on the fence behind them “i know the ivy is for fidelity…”

Daichi-san nods.

“And the azalea there,” he points at the little bush the kids are now examining with Mrs. Devaux, “that’s for temperance.”

“That’s nice, they’re both nice,” Daichi-san attempts a smile and jerks his chin toward the camellia they are both hunched on “and this one?”

Suga thumbs at the pink of the petals and it comes to him as he whispers it. “Longing.”

Of their own accord his eyes raise to look at Daichi-san, only to find the man’s gaze already fixed on him. The word rings into their ears and after a moment they both lower their eyes again and let out shallow breaths that mingle in the small space between their bodies.

Forget butterflies, there’s an entire flock of birds fluttering their wings inside Suga’s stomach.

“That’s a nice meaning,” Daichi-san mutters but when all Suga does is nod, he sighs again and makes to stand up.

_No, no, no._

He can’t leave now. It can’t go on like this between them.

Before he can talk himself out of it Suga takes one of Daichi-san’s hands in his and tugs and tugs, until Daichi-san is sitting down across from him again.

Then he lets go, quick. In their nearness he can smell Daichi-san’s cologne.

Sandalwood.

_Ok, focus._

“I’m sorry,” he says, or better he spits out. Daichi-san opens his mouth to speak and he raises a finger to silence him. The speech he’s had prepared for hours is finally coming back to him, all at once, and he can’t let the man disrupt his rhythm. He needs to say this now.

“I’m…I want to apologize, for the other night, i mean.”

He takes a deep breath and keeps going. He can do this. “It wasn’t my intention to offend you in any way, it’s just that sometimes i feel like i know better than others and i can’t help myself, so i start talking and talking and-”

And now he’s rambling.

“I was totally out of line, not that i don’t think what i said because i do, i think everything i said but maybe i should have said it in a different way, i should have had more tact and not be so patronizing and also-”

Daichi-san presses a finger in the middle of Suga’s forehead and Suga is so shocked by the gesture he falls silent, his mouth closes with a subdued clink of teeth.

“It always works on Kaede,” Daichi-san tells him and he looks both abashed and conspiratorial at the same time. Not to mention overwhelmingly handsome but he looks that way every single day, so.

Daichi-san clears his throat and Suga has to physically force himself not to follow the bob of his throat with his eyes. He stubbornly looks up to stare into Daichi-san’s eyes instead.

As if that’s any better.

“I’m the one who should apologize,” Daichi-san says then and his blush spreads, barely noticeable thanks to his tanned skin but still irrefutably there. “I put you in an uncomfortable position with my…outburst. I shouldn’t have said any of those things...”

“NO!” Suga says, much louder than intended. Daichi-san jumps but Suga ignores it because no, no no.

“No, Daichi-san, i’m…i’m glad you did. Well, no, i’m not glad you felt bad enough to think and say all those things but i’m glad you told me about them. I’m…i’m glad we talked.”

And now he’s blushing too, he knows. Plus he totally just sounded like an over-eager high schooler talking to his old-time crush, didn’t he? All that’s left for him to do now is give the man the second button of his shirt. Damn it. But he does mean it. These past few days the only thing he’s been sure of is how incredibly glad he was – has been, is - that that conversation happened in the first place, that Daichi-san felt comfortable enough to share this other part of him, less self-assured and a lot more human. A lot more him.

Daichi-san is staring now, like Suga’s suddenly grown two extra heads out of his neck, but at least he doesn’t look angry or worse, sorry.

“You’re glad we talked.” He repeats it very slowly, as though he’s still unsure he got that right.

Suga nods. “Yes, very. I know i’m just your children’s nanny but if you ever need something, if you need to talk i…i can listen…”

A pause.

“That’s one of the five basic human senses after all.”

Daichi-san lets out a surprised chuckle at his joke, the line of his shoulders drops.

“Thank you, Suga-san” he whispers and it’s weirdly intimate, the way he says it. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

They both take a fistful of soil each and spread it around the trunk of the camellia. When they move away the camellia stays put, firmly planted in the ground.

They share a look and Daichi-san’s eyes crinkle at the corners. “By the way,” he says and a thrill slithers down Suga’s back because he knows that tone, he recognizes it, “that’s a nice hat you’re wearing.”

Wait for it.

“I think my nana has one just like this!”

There it is.

Suga fidgets with the satin of the ribbon, the wide fold of straw, and beams. “I commend the _originality_ of your joke, Daichi-san. Truly.”

Daichi-san grins back and with the sun coloring the side of his face gold Suga thinks – he knows - he’s never seen a man more beautiful.

 

It’s well past eight when Suga and Mrs. Devaux finally pack their things to leave.

Daichi-san sees them to the door, shakes Mrs. Devaux’s hand again and still lingers. Even after they’ve said their quick goodbye he follows Suga with his eyes till he and Mrs. Devaux disappear around the corner.

Suga does his best not to look back and he even manages to, but his heart is hammering in his chest the entire time.

He walks Mrs. Devaux to her house and again he leans down to kiss her cheek. Now he feels too light to worry about it, and Mrs. Devaux welcomes it with a simple smile.

Her hand grips his arm as he’s about to go, though, and tells him to be careful.

Suga nods, says he will, but the feeling that she’s not talking about walking the streets alone nags at him the whole night. As does the comforting, thrilling weight of Daichi-san’s gaze on him.

In the morning he still hasn’t found an explanation to either of those things, and he’s not really sure he wants to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Red Spider Lily in Hanakotoba (the Japanese language of flowers) means abandonment, it blooms in the wake of the meeting of two people who are destined to never see each other again and is often a flower used in funerals. So yeah, i'm so going to hell for this.  
> In my head Suga also really loves Forget-Me-Nots and the Lily of the valley but in the end i went with Frangipani because it's a flower with a very interesting story behind it. It's very long to explain so i'm just going to copy-paste from a site:
> 
> ''Modern florists often recommend the Frangipani as a gift for someone who has endured many challenges because this plant must be heated over 500 degrees F to catch alight and start burning. Aside from a natural toughness, the delicate look of the flower makes it a symbol of grace, wealth, and perfection across Asia. However, many people in China and Vietnam consider it unlucky because of a folk belief that ghosts and other spirits live in the branches of the bush. As a wedding flower across southern India, it symbolizes the lasting bond between a married couple. Chinese people also use it to indicate affection and love when it’s inappropriate to speak about those feelings openly. Swahili poets also use it as a symbol of love, while Buddhist and Hindu followers consider it a sign of immortality and the continuation of the soul after death.''
> 
> Some of these meanings fit Suga and the story very well i think, some other are just plain cool.  
> As always thank you for reading, i promise that next chapter will almost entirely feature Daichi and Suga together.


	7. When i first saw you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suga has dreams, finally gets laid, and does some serious introspection. But not serious enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Carole and Eilidh. I know it's been a rough week for you, i hope this manages to make you smile. At least just a little.

Warm arms are holding him.

Suga attempts a scream as he falls down, down the spinning platform and into the unknown but arms enfold him and he’s safe again. He clings onto the body pressed against him and finds it solid, comforting. His fingers clench the fabric of a shirt.

Sandalwood and sweat, he breathes it in and hides his face in the man’s neck. He knows who it is, of course he knows, in dreams there’s no room, no reason for denial.

He presses a kiss on Daichi’s skin and it burns his lips. He presses more, and more, on the curve of his jaw, the shell of his ear, his chin. He looks into dark, warm eyes and, with his own still open, he kisses Daichi’s mouth.

He sees Daichi’s eyes flutter close, his dark lashes caress strong cheekbones. He sees a blush color Daichi’s cheeks and reaches out to trace it with his fingertips.

He touches nothing but thin air.

Suga blinks and suddenly he’s alone in his bed, only the ceiling staring back at him. Only a cat to keep him company.

He punches the mattress as a curse leaves his lips. Then he looks around for his phone and finally makes a call.

 

*

 

 

It’s 9:30 on a Thursday and Suga is going to have sex. At last.

Satori greets him with a quick nod and a ‘hey’ and both his hands come down to grab at Suga’s ass before Suga has the chance to say ‘hello’.

“Um” is all he can manage.

“I’ve wanted to do this since i first saw you pass me by in class…” Satori says, slowly, as though he’s trying to explain quantum physics to a child, “let me have this, Sugawara.”

Suga gives a long-suffering sigh and backs into his hands.

“Thank you.”

Any other day the mockery in Satori’s voice would have made Suga play so hard to get he’d have to be begged to allow further access to his graces but today, today he’s horny. And he feels guilty for being horny because he’s had inappropriate, and worse of all _very_ _tame_ , dreams about a man who is as unattainable as he’s out of his league – which is a lot, really – that have left him breathless so he needs to have sex.

He needs to have sex, and he needs to have it now.

He grabs Satori by the collar of his shirt and drags him down for a kiss. It’s hard and a little sloppy but when Satori bites at his bottom lip Suga whimpers, his eyes close in bliss.

God, it’s been so long since the last time he had sex. Five months are a lot. He’s never gone so long without it, not since he lost his virginity in his first year of college.

“You sure are eager today,” Satori mutters against his jaw.

“I’m horny.” Suga gets his hands under Satori’s shirt and pinches a nipple, so hard he gets a hiss.

“You – _ah_ – you don’t say.”

Satori almost rips Suga’s shirt in his haste to get him out of it. He takes a moment to just look at him, with his eyes he follows the line of Suga’s neck, lingers on his jutting hipbones and the – detestable – noticeable curve of his hips. Finally he reaches out and traces his sharp collarbones with a single finger.

Then goes down, down, till he reaches the band of Suga’s sweatpants. Till Suga is shivering.

Heat has pooled low in his stomach, just for that touch, and his breath is coming out in short, heavy pants through his parted lips. He grabs Satori’s wrist and waits for him to meet his eyes.

It takes a moment but at last he does, and Suga gestures to the bed with a jerk of his chin.

“Stop messing around and get on your hands and knees.”

Satori doesn’t need to be told twice.

 

“I knew it.”

Satori lets himself fall back on the bed and drags a hand down his face. He’s covered in sweat and his face is almost as red as his hair and he’s got the smuggest, most shit-eating grin Suga has ever seen. What a dork.

Suga sits up, propped against the pillows, and decides to humor him. “You knew what?”

Satori looks at him, or better, he looks down at his body lasciviously, and smirks. “That hips like yours were promise of good orgasms.”

Suga takes a pillow from behind his back and hits him in the face with it. He’s smirking too, now.

“Shut up, you pervert.”

“If i’m a pervert then you’re a freak.”

Suga hits him again, this time with more force. Then falls nose first against the pillows he didn’t use as a weapon.

His body is relaxed, so much so it almost feels numb. He’s all sticky with sweat too and it’s gross but fuck he just doesn’t have the energy to care, let alone move enough to do something about it.

That was _good_. Suga is not going to pretend that while they fucked Satori’s hair didn’t sometime turn jet black in the back of his mind, he’s too tired to, but maybe now that he’s finally had sex his gaze will stop lingering with quite so much frequency on the thickness of Daichi-san’s thighs, or the broad expanse of his chest. His sculpted arms, his handsome face…

He did say ‘maybe’.

He turns his face a little so his cheek is resting on the pillows and his eyes fall on Satori again. Satori who is…staring at his ass, of course.

“Hey!”

Satori jumps, he’d probably forgotten there’s an actual person attached to the butt. “What?” he asks with the innocence of a bank robber caught by the police while he’s counting the money. “I’m just admiring.”

Suga raises an eyebrow at him but makes no move to change position, lie on his back instead or cover himself with the sheets. In a way he’s flattered, he hasn’t been feeling that attractive lately. This kind of attention is heady.

“I never would have thought you were the kind of guy to pay these kinds of compliments.”

“I’m not, but i always give credit where credit is due.”

Suga makes a show of rolling his eyes. “Thank you, then.”

“No, no. Thank _you_.”

They start snickering like a couple of high schoolers but what can Suga say, sex makes everyone a little stupid.

His phone buzzes and lights up with an upcoming call. Suga blindly feels around for it and answers without checking the caller.

“Hello?” His voice is still a little rough from his previous activities.

“Good morning, Suga-san. Did i wake you?” The voice that answers is a deep, charming rumble and Suga recognizes it immediately. His heart does a double flip in his chest.

It’s not just sex that makes everyone a little stupid.

Suga clears his throat and tries to sit up straight. “No, Daichi-san. I was…i was already up.”

“Oh, good. I didn’t mean to call you so early but i have a meeting in five minutes,” the crisp sound of papers being browsed, “and it was either now or too late to be sensible.”

“It’s hardly that early, Daichi-san, don’t worry. It’s past 10 am already!”

Truth be told when he doesn’t have class or other commitments – like working on his thesis - Suga is incapable, his body just refuses, to wake up before 11 am. But Daichi-san is being so considerate...

“Well, yeah i know,” Daichi-san replies “but you’re a college student and it’s in the college student’s DNA to be either exhausted or famished 24/7.”

“Or both at the same time.”

Daichi-san laughs and it’s lovely. “Yeah, or both at the same time.”

“Besides,” he continues and there’s that teasing edge that always makes Suga’s skin tingle, “i seem to remember you asking me for ‘three more hours, Tooru’ that time you fell asleep on my couch…”

Suga blushes, from the tip of his ears down to his chest. He doesn’t remember saying _that_ actually but…but he does remember how he’d felt, waking up to Daichi-san’s face. It’s not something he wants to analyze too closely.

He tugs at a crease on the pillow case and clears his throat again, more than a little mortified. “I-i don’t recall-”

“Oh, but i do…”

Silence falls between them and Suga bites his lip. It’s become a familiar companion to their conversations, this silence that’s both kind of awkward and comfortable at the same time. The ruffling of papers begins again.

Suga starts playing with a lock of his hair, twists it around his finger.

Then Satori coughs rather pointedly and he flinches.

That’s right. He’s…not alone now.

“Daichi-san?” Suga speaks, squirming under Satori’s intrigued gaze.

“Yes?”

“What, um. Did you…call to tell me something or was it just-” he stops abruptly, before he can say something really stupid like ‘’just to hear my voice’’. That’s absurd, he’s absurd.

“Oh, yeah!” now Daichi-san sounds awkward too, “I wanted to ask you…if you can of course, if you could come to my office in a couple of hours so we can discuss Ayame’s birthday party.”

Ayame’s birthday party. Ayame’s birthday that is in only a week. Oh shit. And Daichi-san wants to discuss it with him, alone. Well, of course he does.

“If you can’t it’s fine, we can do it another day-”

“No! No, i mean yes, yes i can come.”

God, why is he so nervous all of a sudden?

“Let’s say around 11:30?”

“Yes, that’s fine. I’ll text you when i’m on the train?”

“Alright.”

Another pause. Suga’s heart is now doing a weird, fluttery thing inside him that is totally uncalled for.

“Then i’ll see you soon,” Daichi-san says and his voice has gotten deeper still, so smooth it should be illegal in all eight regions. All forty-seven prefectures.

“Ok, bye.” Suga hangs up quick without waiting for a reply and hides his face in his arms.

The bed shifts under him and Satori’s stare leaves his skin in prickles. He knows he just made a complete fool of himself, he’s aware, but he was just so…so not prepared for a conversation like that, as innocent as it was.

He has no idea what the fuck is happening with him.

He waits for the teasing to start, and sadly not the sexual kind, his entire body in tension, but Satori just says “So that’s the guy.”

Nothing more.

Suga doesn’t ask for explanations. He just flops on his back to stare at the ceiling.

Again.

 

*

 

 

Daichi-san’s law firm is located in one of the richest areas of the city.

Suga clenches the note he scribbled the address on in his fingers, checks it again and tries to walk as swiftly as he can down these unfamiliar roads. Needless to say he, _a broke college student_ , never had any reasons to come to this neighborhood.

Hell, he can nearly feel his – already too light – wallet empty even more just by looking at the windows of the shops he passes by. Over 300,000 yen for a plain red bag, are these people out of their minds?

A tanned woman in an expensive-looking black dress coming out from a Gucci store gives him a skeptical, questioning look. Never in his life has Suga related more to Vivian Ward.

Does that make Daichi-san Richard Gere?

Of course it does not. God, Daichi-san is much more handsome.

Aaaand his mind has gone away for a merry wander again. Great.

Mercifully he soon catches sight of the Watanabe&Co. engraving at the corner of the street and breaks into a full jog toward it.

The building is pretty old by Tokyo standards, dated at least World War I, with simple, geometrical bas-reliefs, that were probably a late addition, around the tall windows and imposing wooden doors.

Suga is almost afraid to come in, even in his best clothes – black slacks and crisp, periwinkle shirt – he feels more out of place in the ample entrance with checkered black and white marble floors than he did in the streets. He’s suddenly very aware he’s wearing mismatched socks.

He meets a marble bust’s empty stare and with a shiver he has the certainty that this bust knows, that – he reads the tag on the half-column that supports him, it – Watanabe-san, founder of the Watanabe law firm, knows that Suga wore mismatched socks in the head office of his blood-sucking money-making empire.

“Can i help you?” a rough voice asks and Suga jumps so high he almost headbutts the 4 meters tall roof.

“Woah there, calm down man,” another voice exclaims, so loud it bounces on every wall, creating a defeaning echo.

Suga blinks at the careless words, the brash tone and at the two figures standing right before him in matching security guards uniforms. One of them, the one who spoke second, is really short. Like, really, really short with jet black hair but for two locks near his temples which are dyed blond, shaped to look like lightning.

That’s really not a look Suga was expecting to find here.

The other is taller than the first, taller than Suga as well, with a good build and dark hair styled in an undercut. If it wasn’t for the vaguely terrifying glare he’s fixing his partner with Suga would have no trouble admitting he’s quite handsome.

“So who are you?” Shorty asks, again with that brash, out of place tone.

Suga gives a polite cough to hide his irritation and stands a little straighter, walks into the patch of light coming from the windows for effect. He smiles. “I’m Sugawara Koushi. I’m here to see Sawamura Daichi-san.”

Now it’s the guards’ turn to blink at him. They look him up and down, twice, as though the image before them is not quite registering into their brains and it might just be a trick of the light but it seems to Suga that Taller Guy is blushing as well.

“You’re here to see Daichi-san?” Shorty, again.

“Yes, that’s what i said…”

And just like that he finds himself flanked by these two strange men. They make him walk under a metal detector – _like those they have in airports! so cool!_ – and when he asks what floor Daichi-san’s office is they tell him, in unison, that they’ll personally escort him upstairs.

That’s not promising.

“So who are you to Daichi-san? No offense but you don’t look like you could be one of his clients…” asks Shorty as they wait for the elevator.

Suga is still tense, he honestly has no idea why two guards would have to leave their spot just to accompany him – it can’t be the socks, right? right?? - and under the little guy’s intense stare he blushes.

“I’m…i’m his nanny?” It almost comes out as a question.

The elevator doors open in front of them but the guards are too busy staring at him open-mouthed to notice. Suga has to put his arm between the already closing doors and nudge them both inside.

“You are…you are his nanny? _You_?” Vaguely Handsome asks, speaking for the first time since Suga introduced himself. His voice is rough, with an almost metallic edge to it. It fits his persona perfectly, his dumbfounded expression not so much.

Suga bristles and raises his chin almost in challenge. “Yes, why?”

Tall and Broody rubs a hand behind his neck, he must have caught the affront in Suga’s tone. “Nothing it’s just…i wasn’t expecting you to be, i mean when Daichi-san said he’d hired a nanny i wasn’t quite expecting someone so-” he drifts off in the middle of the sentence and because he can’t seem to find the words he just points at Suga unhelpfully.

Suga frowns.

“What Ryuu is trying to say,” Smurf interjects, “is that he didn’t think you’d be this cute.”

“N-noya-san!”

‘Ryuu’ is an alarming scarlet now. “I didn’t mean that, i meant…young! That’s it, you’re young!”

The guy is _sweating_ now and in front of his agitation Suga can really, only do one thing: laugh. Laugh so hard tears start pooling at the corners of his eyes, nerves finally forgotten.

“Oh, my, you two…”

He dabs at his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt, his shoulders still shaking. “Well, i’m flattered,” he says and winks at Ryuu, who blushes even harder.

The elevator pings and Suga finds himself face to face with Daichi-san who was just walking by and…laughing with a gorgeous woman. At the noise he turns around immediately.

“Suga-san!” he says, as though he’s surprised to find him here.

For a moment Suga is afraid he hallucinated their conversation on the phone.

“Daichi-san?” His voice is a murmur.

The gorgeous woman is staring at him too now, with poorly-veiled curiosity in her eyes. He starts fidgeting with the cuff of his shirt. There’s a wet stain on it now. Damn it, he should have brought with him a handkerchief or something. His nana gave some to him when he left for uni he should start using th-

Without warning Noya-san pushes Suga and Ryuu out of the elevator, almost making both of them trip, and goes to playfully punch Daichi-san on the arm.

“Daichi-san, you old dog,” he says and opens his hand for a high five that Daichi-san is too confused to give.

“What?”

Noya-san gestures to Suga, waving his hands up and down, in direction of his body, rather suggestively. “ _This_ is your nanny?” he asks, all rhetoric and show and if Suga thought his gestures were inappropriate then his tone is downright lascivious.

Suga wishes they were at the very least acquaintaces, so he could punch ‘Noya-san’ in the face with no regrets and without risking a lawsuit.

Daichi-san seems to be thinking the same thing, if the murderous aura he’s giving off right now is any indication. A little voice in Suga’s head makes sure to point out how hard the man is blushing as well.

“Wait a second, _that’s_ your nanny?” It’s the woman who speaks now, and her voice is so low and husky it sends shivers down Suga’s spine.

“Yes, i’m the nanny.”

“Yes, he’s the nanny.”

What’s so hard to believe about that?

Suga’s lips purse into a pout – that probably doesn’t help in making him look more like a professional  – and the woman’s expression softens.

She steps closer to him, till they are standing face to face, and her gaze travels over the curves and planes of his face. Suga’s does the same and he’s not surprised to find she’s even more attractive up close. A little older than Daichi-san, maybe in her forties, and absolutely stunning. Her face is a perfect oval, her eyes are sharp. Her auburn hair is striking, with its thousand different hues.

“I’m Mai Inoue,” her hand is soft and dry in his, her hold firm. “It’s a pleasure.”

“Sugawara Koushi,” he babbles, and silently hopes his palm is not too sweaty. “The pleasure is all mine.”

She steps back again and her eyes lock with Daichi-san’s. She smirks. “Yuu-kun is right, Daichi. You sure picked him pretty.”

Daichi-san almost chokes on…absolutely nothing, except maybe his indignation. “I d-didn’t. It’s…he’s excellent with the kids, alright?” he says at last, his voice rough. He crosses his arms on his chest and fixes the two guards with a withering glare, even though they’ve been quiet for a while.

Noya-san and Ryuu get the message and take their leave quickly after that, a wise decision in Suga’s opinion, but not before Noya-san has said – or rather, yelled - “Please come back soon, Suga-chan. Soon and often!”

Ryuu nods at him and almost walks into the elevator door when Suga waves his fingers at him.

“So those are your security guards…” he says as soon as they’ve left. “How is this place still standing?”

Inoue-san laughs and even Daichi-san uncrosses his arms and hints a smile. “I ask myself this very question every day.”

They all start walking to Daichi-san’s office.

“Well, but it looks like they’ve already become your admirers, Sugawara-kun” Inoue-san tells him with ease. “That’s always a good thing to have.”

“What? Admirers?”

She leans toward him to fake-whisper in his ear “Men who will do whatever you ask them to.”

She winks salaciously at him and Daichi-san almost trips on his feet, next to him.

The amused smile on Suga’s face freezes and an unpleasant weight sits on his shoulders as realization dawns on him.

He trails behind then, with the excuse of admiring the architecture of the building. In truth his eyes never really leave the two figures now walking side by side, a couple of steps ahead of him. At one point Inoue-san’s hand comes up to rest in the crook of Daichi-san’s arm and Suga notices, he sees the way her thumb moves, strokes Daichi-san’s elbow through layers of fabric.

Suga’s eyes fall to the floor.

_Daichi-san sure has excellent taste in women_ , he thinks to himself and it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. He wishes it wouldn’t, after all what reason does he have to be bitter.

None. None at all

“Mai only needs to drop off a file, Suga-san, you can come in if-”

“No, no, i’ll wait here. You do what you have to do,” he says with a smile – always with a smile - and leans on the opposite wall to Daichi-san’s office, near Daichi-san’s assistant’s desk.

The guy nods at him in greeting and Suga nods back. He’s cute, the assistant, looks around Suga’s age, with preppy bangs pushed away from his eyes and a youthful, round face. Without meaning to Suga catches pieces of the e-mail he’s writing. It’s to a certain ‘Keiji’ and it contains the word ‘love’ a little too many times to be work-related.

Suga averts his gaze again and it falls on the closed door in front of him.

Love, maybe that’s the reason.

When was the last time _he_ was in love? Hell, when was the last time he was in a ‘serious relationship’?

He does a quick mental count and his jaw almost drops when he finds an answer: over a year ago, almost two. He hadn’t even noticed it had been so long since Ryouta. He’s so quick to remember the name only because he remembers all too well why they broke up in the first place.

And really what does that say about him?

Ever since Tooru got back with Hajime he’s been trying to set Suga up with pretty much all of his non-straight friends – which are a lot, actually. Ok, not all, Suga amends, Tooru never tried to set him up with Ushijima. But that’s to be expected considering their history and a good dose of feelings Tooru is not ready to acknowledge yet.

In any case, he’s tried to find Suga a boyfriend harder than Suga has. He thought that was because he felt no need for one – hell, he has _no_ _need_ for one – and because of school, his thesis, etc. but maybe…maybe he does miss it a little. Waking up next to someone who’s there for more than just an orgasm, cuddling on the couch, arguing about stupid shit, holding hands…

It’s nice. So maybe that’s why he’s been so weird lately, regarding Daichi-san. He’s a handsome man after all, a good man, reliable. He gives off such a sense of security, even to Suga who knows him so little, the assurance that whatever happens he’ll be strong enough to catch you if you fall.

That’s something that, outside of his family, Suga has never been able to find.

The door to Daichi-san’s office falls open and he and Inoue-san come out, she with a pile of files in her arms and he already wearing his jacket.

“Are we ready to go?” Daichi-san asks, as though Suga had been the one to make him wait.

Suga raises an eyebrow at him and nods.

“It was lovely meeting you, Sugawara-kun” Inoue-san says with a smile.

Suga smiles back, honest, and bows. “Likewise, Inoue-san. Likewise.”

“Ennoshita, could you help Mai take these files to her office?”

Daichi-san’s assistant springs up at the man’s words and takes all the files from Inoue-san’s arms, despite her protests.

“I’m sorry, Suga-san,” Daichi-san begins to say on their way to the elevator, “the meeting dragged on for longer than i expected and i didn’t have time to explain Mai this new case we just got.”

“It’s fine, Daichi-san. It’s fine.”

They wave at Noya-san and Ryuu – Suga still doesn’t know their full names – and walk into the busy, sunlit streets of Tokyo.

“Do you have any ideas regarding Ayame’s party?” Daichi-san asks immediately,  an uncertain, almost concerned look in his eyes.

“Well, you were thinking of doing it at your house, right?” A nod. “Then i think we should keep it simple. Kids Ayame’s age are in that awkward phase where everything is either really lame or the coolest sh- um thing ever.”

“So let’s just decorate the house, free the living room for the kids to settle in and have a buffet…”

“So you don’t think we should hire, like, a professional to entertain the kids?”

Suga looks at Daichi-san, notices the way he’s biting the inside of his cheek and the nervous twitching of his fingers around his work bag. “Is there something wrong, Daichi-san?”

Daichi-san lets out a long sigh and rubs the back of his neck. “It’s just that…Yurika usually handles things like this. My idea of celebration has always been a quiet dinner, cake, and…well, that’s it. I was never much of a…”

“Party animal?” Suga suggests with a smirk.

Daichi-san huffs and, without thinking, pushes Suga’s shoulder playfully. “Whatever.”

Suga bursts out laughing at the annoyed, almost petulant pout on Daichi-san’s face, it’s so out of character, and runs after him when the man makes a show of leaving him behind.

“Alright, alright. I didn’t know you were so touchy, Daichi-san.”

“I’m not!”

“In any case, i don’t think we should hire one but maybe it’d be best to ask Ayame.”

Daichi-san nods and passes a hand through his hair. “I just want this to be perfect, you know?” he says, his voice so soft Suga has to lean in to hear it. “Like i said, it was always Yurika who dealt with these things and the kids always had fun but with her being away and all…”

Suga wants to take his arm. Much like Inoue-san had done before he wants to rest his hand in the crook of Daichi-san’s arm and squeeze it gently. Reassuringly.

He bumps their shoulders together instead. “It’ll be fine, Daichi-san. We’ll ask her and even if she says no i know a lot of games we can play in case the kids start to get bored.”

Their eyes meet. “Alright?”

“Alright.”

Daichi-san is smiling again now. Suga feels weirdly accomplished.

 

Daichi-san leads them to store after store, looking for ideas for a present.

They quickly dismiss any kind of toy they see, Ayame is getting a little too old for those and, to hear Daichi-san say it, she was never much a fan of them anyway.

“She’s always been the kind to run outside as soon as she could to play with her volleyball, or ride her bike around the neighborhood,” he says while inspecting an extremely expensive doll. “The only time she ever settles down is when she wants to watch a movie, it’s been this way since she was little.”

His expression has gone soft with the memory of Ayame as a baby and Suga’s heart misses a beat. He doesn’t know if it’s for how gorgeous Daichi-san looks or for the fact that he never got to see Ayame as a baby. She must have been the most precious thing, all chubby cheeks and adorable freckles and pudgy feet.

He hides his frown behind his bangs and tries on a pair of sparkly, pink heart-shaped sunglasses.

“You look great, Suga-san,” Daichi-san gives him an approving nod.

“Thank you, i aspire to become a fashion icon one day and start a trend.”

He hands Daichi-san a pair of glasses with googly eyes and a fake moustache and is surprised when Daichi-san actually puts them on.

He has his phone out before Daichi-san can even blink.

“Absolutely no, Suga-san, i-”

“Oh, come on! Here, i’ll get in the picture too!”

It’s only with this promise, plus the one not to show these pics to _anyone_ , that Daichi-san caves and strikes a pose.

This is the story of how Sugawara Koushi and Sawamura Daichi took their first picture together, wearing silly pairs of glasses and even sillier smiles. The first, but hardly the last in the course of fifty-two years, the fifty-two years they got to spend together.

Suga saves it in his ‘favourites’ folder, right next to the one of Ayame and Kaede in bright yellow hats and that of him and his father laughing at a joke Suga doesn’t remember anymore.

“I’m so going to show this to your children every time you try to scold them, Daichi-san.”

“Y-you promised you wouldn’t!” Daichi-san sputters, looking positively betrayed.

Suga throws a cheeky grin his way. “I had my fingers crossed.”

“You absolute-”

Suga never finds out what Daichi-san meant to call him, he’s too busy laughing at the shock on his face, so loud half the shop has turned to stare at him.

 

They’ve somehow drifted so far into the store they’ve reached the newborn/maternity section.

“Um, Suga-san, i don’t think any of these things are going to fit Ayame,” Daichi-san tries to reason.

It falls on deaf years because Suga’s eyes have fallen on an adorable azure onesie with octopuses on it and he’s dying inside. “Oh, God. This is the cutest thing,” he coos and picks it up to look at it more closely. “I would have a baby just to make them wear this.”

“A solid reason to become a parent, i must say.”

Suga all but thrusts it in Daichi-san’s face and looks at him with impossibly wide eyes. “Do you think i could buy this for Onyx?”

“You want to buy this for your _cat_?”

A very pregnant lady walking past them turns to look at Suga like he’s crazy. It only serves to convince him even more to buy the thing.

Then Daichi-san gives him a pointed look and with a huff Suga puts the onesie back where he found it. The woman is on it immediately.

Suga glares at Daichi-san and walks away briskly. Now he’s the one who feels betrayed.

“Suga-san, come on!”

Suga aggressively browses through other baby clothes – why, he has absolutely no clue – and doesn’t answer.

“That woman actually has a baby on the way, do you really want to take that cute onesie away from a _baby_?”

Well, put it this way makes for a very compelling argument.

“I could have a baby one day,” Suga whispers to the displayer in front of him.

Daichi-san chuckles under his breath. “I’m sure there will be other octopus onesies, even cuter than this one, for you to buy when your baby is a little closer to be real.”

Suga rolls his eyes at him, then makes a desperate noise of disgust as his gaze falls on a onesie with a – frankly terrifying – clown on the front. He fucking hates clowns. “You better be right, Daichi-san, otherwise…”

“I’ll let you punch me, _once_ , if i’m wrong.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere but on the face.”

Suga sighs and gives him a resigned nod. He’ll have to be satisfied with that.

In that moment he’s too busy brooding to notice the fond expression on Daichi-san’s face, the softening of his eyes as he looks down at him.

 

They’re almost out of the store, tragically empty-handed, when Suga sees _it_.

A magenta/prune colored shirt with a pink shrimp on the front. He’s on it in two steps.

Daichi-san lags behind with a long-suffering sigh.

“Not this again…”

Suga is considering punching him right now.

“This is everything,” he says with a touch of reverence, his hands stroking the soft cotton.

Despite his reluctance Daichi-san lets out a low hum. “Ayame would like this…” he admits.

Suga calls one of the employees of the shop, a young woman who smiles gently at him as soon as she sees him. “Yes, what can i do for you?”

“Do you have this in bigger sizes?”

She regards it with a long look, then browses through the shirts folded on a shelf close by. “We seem to have it only for kids aged 4 and 6, only medium and small size for both.”

Suga’s shoulders drop. “Those could never fit me,” he says mournfully.

The woman blinks at him, surprised. “Your child is already as tall as you? Oh my, you don’t look old enough to have a child that big!” she chirps.

Suga frowns. “What child? I’m asking for me!”

Next to him Daichi-san coughs in his hand to hide a laugh.

The woman looks from Suga to Daichi-san, who’s clearly struggling to keep a straight face, and giggles. “Your husband is very funny, sir,” she tells Daichi-san with a conspiratorial wink.

Silence falls. Suga’s face turns the same, exact color of the shirt. Daichi-san has stopped laughing.

They look at each other and just as quickly look away.

“We are not-”

“He is not-”

“I’m his nanny!”

“Yes. Yes he’s my nanny, well, not mine- _mine_ like he doesn’t look after _me_ , just my children, he’s my children’s nanny. Yes.”

“I think she got it, Daichi-san.”

The woman blushes too and apologizes at least a dozen times to both of them. They pretty much have to flee the shop to run away from her mortification, and from their own.

They walk side by side without uttering a single word for three blocks, still flushed and looking down at their feet. It surely would have lasted longer, this forced, stubborn silence, had it not been for Suga’s stomach making itself known with a grumble. Loud and clear and embarrassing.

The line of Daichi-san’s shoulders relaxes a little and he even attempts a smile.

“Well, i guess i’d better feed you now.”

“Yes, please or my stomach might start eating itself.”

“And we can’t have that.”

“No we can’t have that.”

Their eyes meet again and Suga feels warm all over, in a way that has little to do with the embarrassment of a few minutes ago.

“Come on, there’s a place a couple of blocks away that makes some excellent shoyo ramen.”

“I’m sold.”

A pause, then Daichi-san adds “It’s on me, of course.”

Suga pinches his arm. “Don’t be stupid, we’ll split…”he bites his lip and coyly bats his eyelashes “…hubby.”

He has to do a side-step to avoid Daichi-san’s shove.

 

The place Daichi-san suggested is nice, a typical low-key ramen place that doesn’t try to pretend to be anything other than what it is: a genuine, cozy restaurant that serves excellent, traditional food.

They pick a table by the corner further away from the door, so small their knees keep bumping together under it. Still neither of them ever suggests to move, even though the restaurant is only about half full.

Their orders arrive quick and the waiter serves them with an amused, strangely knowing smile. At the sight of the food Daichi-san lights up, stops fidgeting and moves so their legs are pressed close, touching from knee to ankle. It’s really the only, comfortable way to eat.

Suga pretends the heat he feels is all from the steam of the broth, and it works well for him.

The super-spicy red chili ramen he’d ordered is absolutely delicious, rich and just the perfect degree of zesty. He looks at Daichi-san, who’s happily enjoying his simple shoyo ramen, and offers him a taste of his.

Daichi-san throws him a deathly glare and slurps his broth purposefully loud. “No thank you, Suga-san. I learned my lesson.”

It falls quiet again between them, only sound the clinking of their spoons.

Suga’s eyes accidentally meet those of a cute high school girl at a table near theirs. She gives him a quick, gentle smile before her attention returns to the guy sitting in front of her. It’s probably her boyfriend, Suga notices they are holding hands under the table.

The weird pang of loneliness he’d felt before, standing outside Daichi-san’s office, near his assistant writing love e-mails while on the job, returns in full force and almost has him drop the spoon. He looks down at his bowl again, almost empty now, and plays half-heartedly with his boiled egg.

Daichi-san is already done with his ramen, it’s almost impressive the speed with which he’d eaten. He lets out a satisfied sigh and leans back on his chair with a relaxed expression. Suga knows he’s looking at him now. He doesn’t raise his eyes.

Almost ten minutes pass before Daichi-san decides to just get whatever this is over with and ask.

“Suga-san, is everything alright?”

“Yes of course,” Suga answers to his egg.

“Of course,” Daichi-san echoes and his chair squeaks as he leans toward him, “so are you going to eat that egg or…?”

Suga does, in only one bite. He almost chokes.

Daichi-san pours him some water and Suga nods in thanks.

“You remember that other day, when you told me you were glad we had that conversation about…about Yurika and the kids?”

Suga nods again and hazards a look at Daichi-san’s face.

“I was glad too. I don’t think i said, but it felt like a weight had finally lifted from my shoulders.”

“Really?” Suga doesn’t hide the surprise in his voice, nor the little smile that has appeared on his face.

“Yes, and, you know, you’re not the only one who can listen.”

Daichi-san’s gaze is gentle but not expectant. He’s not waiting for Suga to speak, he just wanted to let him know that if he does want to, Suga can talk to him. And it’s this, more than anything, that has Suga put down his spoon at last.

His eyes fall on the couple of high school students again, they are not holding hands anymore but the girl is laughing at something the guy said and he looks incredibly proud of himself for that.

“Inoue-san is very beautiful,” Suga says at last, and it’s not at all what he meant to.

It’s not what Daichi-san was expecting either.

“Um, yeah sure, of course,” he stammers. “Was this what you’ve been thinking about?”

“No! No, it’s just…you two…” Suga gestures vaguely at Daichi-san and Daichi-san blushes, just a little around the ears.

“Oh, so you got that…were we that obvious?” he asks and there’s concern in his eyes.

“No, i don’t think so but she, um, she had her hand on your arm…”

“Oh.”

“B-but it wasn’t, i wasn’t trying to imply anything it’s just. Must be nice.” He finishes lamely and wishes he still had his egg to play with. He feels weirdly exposed now.

Now Daichi-san waits, in silence, for Suga to speak the things he’s only just realized.

“I just, i was standing there, outside your office, and i started thinking about how long it’s been since i last had… _that_.”

“And how long has it been?”

“Almost two years…” Suga looks down again, at his empty bowl, and tries for a casual shrug.

“Well, it’s not that long, considering how young you are.”

“I’ll be 26 next month, Daichi-san, and correct me if i’m wrong but weren’t you already married and with a kid at my age?”

Daichi-san’s gaze drops too, on his left hand, on his empty ring finger. “Yeah, and look how well that turned out.”

He doesn’t sound sad like Suga would have expected, but bitter, and Suga so desperately wants to take his words back. All of them.

“Daichi-san i’m so sorry-”

Daichi-san stops him with an open palm and a smile, small but sincere, that carries no hard feelings nor offense. “It’s alright, i got what you meant.”

Then he leans toward Suga again and his knee fits in the space between Suga’s legs. It’s weirdly intimate and Suga’s insides catch on fire. His stomach, his lungs, his heart…

“So, do you miss it?” Daichi-san asks and his voice is a caress that follows the line of Suga’s spine.

_Yes. God yes._

“I…i do, yeah. Maybe.”

Daichi-san chuckles lightly at the uncertainty of his words – not knowing he’s the cause of it.

“Well, wasn’t there a guy that left you his number? I’m talking about the first time we met…”

Wow, the man sure has a good memory.

Suga blushes. “I, um, yes there was but it wasn’t, it’s not really…”

He doesn’t know why he can’t just lie again, say yes and ‘ugh, that didn’t work out’ and get it over with but Daichi-san is listening, he genuinely wants to know so Suga clears his throat and tells the truth, although really, really quietly.

“It was, we were just looking to, um,” he clears his throat again and raises his eyebrows meaningfully.

“Oh.”

Daichi-san’s eyes fall, almost automatically, down the column of his throat. They travel low, following the dip of his collarbones and hesitate on his heaving chest. Only to stop where the table is obscuring his view to the rest. Suga gulps down his nerves, his heart a mess, and after a moment Daichi-san does the same.

“Well,” Daichi-san’s voice has dropped of at least a octave, he sounds as out of breath as Suga feels “well, that’s…another way to take care of…of-”

He looks at Suga with wide, alarmed eyes, as though he’s asking Suga to help him get this sentence out. As if, Suga can barely remember his own name right now. Thankfully the waiter chooses this exact moment to arrive and ask them if they would like something else and the distraction grants both of them a breather.

“D-do you want anything else, Suga-san?”

“No, no, i’m fine.”

The waiter bows and leaves them alone again, still a smirk on his face.

He and Daichi-san look at each other again and for whatever reason, maybe to release the tension, maybe because the fumes of their ramen have caused them to lose their bloody minds, they burst out laughing. It’s brief, too brief and a little hysterical, but it’s enough for them to get a grip on themselves and promptly leave behind – and without second thoughts – the moment they just shared.

It’s all that it was, after all, a moment that’s already past.

The high school kids left and so have half the people in the restaurant. Around them only empty tables.

Surprising himself Suga finally says, loud and clear, what he really meant to say from the beginning. “I want more.”

“I didn’t realize before today, just how much i miss the…the little things about being in a relationship. Maybe it’s because i was so busy with school, with my thesis, and now with work, but i do. I do want those things.”

Daichi-san stares at him, and there’s a weird expression of surprise on his face, as though he’s just realized a few things himself.

“Me too,” he says then, leaving Suga to blink stupidly at him.

“But i thought…Inoue-san…”

And Daichi-san tells him. Tells him about her invitations to spend some time at her house, his constant refusals, not wanting to miss hours he could spend with his children. He tells him and Suga recognizes this, the loneliness Daichi-san has been forcing onto himself. He recognizes it so well.

“Daichi-san,” he calls in a moment of silence, “Yurika-san comes back in two weeks.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So, she’ll want to see her children, right? Have them for the weekends or something, you could use that time to go see Inoue-san.” There’s a strange heaviness in his chest as he says this.

Silence.

“Daichi-san,” he calls again.

“Yes?”

Suga waits for their eyes to meet to tell him. “Daichi-san, you don’t have to deny yourself.”

Daichi-san sucks in a breath and the line of his mouth becomes hard, pointed. But his eyes, his eyes turn soft again, and softer still. “Neither do you, Suga-san.”

Oh but he does. In this, Suga must.

“Suga,” he says instead, simply.

“What?”

“Just Suga is fine.” After a day like this it feels only right.

“Suga…” Daichi-san repeats it a couple of times and it causes goosebumps to rise on the skin of Suga’s arms.

He ignores it. “After all,” his smile turns into a smirk, “i’m _so_ _much_ _younger_ than you.”

“Hey!”

 

They spend the rest of their walk back to Daichi-san’s office bickering.

And Daichi-san is so busy trying to convince Suga that yes, when he was in high school he could receive Bokuto Koutaro’s spike – _as if_ – that they miss a turn and find themselves in a delightfully shady, narrow side street they have no recollection of.

“Daichi-san, you made me get lost!”

“I’m lost too, Suga!”

“Yeah, but this is your territory, your hunting place-”

“What am i, an animal from the savannah?”

“The space where you prowl in search for poor, well rich but poor inside, bastards willing to give you money for…”

“I’m not even sure what you’re talking about anymore.”

“Me neither, to be honest.”

They walk around some, trying to understand where the heck they are and there, in the shady lane that smells faintly of hairspray, they stumble upon their saving grace.

With matching smirks they step inside the shop, hands already on their wallets.

 

Lunch break ended over 15 minutes ago but Daichi-san doesn’t look too worried about that. He and Suga walk up the stairs that lead to the main entrance, with all the calm in the world and bags in their hand, and stop only in front of the wide open wooden doors.

They barely register the guards inside looking at them with interest.

Daichi-san rubs the back of his neck, in a gesture Suga has come to recognize, and gives him an awkward, almost apologetic smile, as though he’s not really sure what to do now.

Suga isn’t either, he just knows that a part of him – ok, _all_ of him – wishes their walk could have lasted a little longer.

“I was-”

“It was really-”

They gesture for the other to go first but in the end all Daichi-san says is “See you later, Suga.”

“See you later, Daichi-san.” is all Suga answers with.

He lingers, just a second, as his brain works around something else to say. He wants to tell Daichi-san that this was nice, more than nice, and that they should do it again but this, this is the kind of thing you say after an awesome date and you’re too embarrassed to ask the other person out again explicitly. You don’t say it to your employer, your handsome, divorced with kids employer who just needed help buying a present for his daughter.

So Suga nods, waves at Noya-san and Ryuu and skips down the stairs, eyes downcast.

Noya-san’s voice still reaches his ears though, and his foot stops, firmly planted on the last step.

“What the hell was that, Daichi-san?”

Suga tightens his grip on the bags and with a sigh he keeps walking, without waiting for the answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couple of things:  
> \- Vivian Ward is the name of Julia Roberts' character in Pretty Woman.  
> \- 300,000 yen are about 3000 dollars, so yeah that bag was expensive to say the least.  
> \- I know i changed both Tanaka and Noya's hairdos but i hope it was still obvious it was them before Suga heard their names, i apologize if it wasn't!  
> \- I love Mai. Please give her a chance.
> 
> More incredible art of blossoms, seriously you guys are such gems! [This](http://mlim8.tumblr.com/post/145914168775/dont-deny-that-im-cute-the-blossoms-just-in) is a beautiful small comic of the now infamous bobby pin scene, and [this](http://trashcatcloset.tumblr.com/post/146634878161/suga-thumbs-at-the-pink-of-the-petals-and-it-comes) is gorgeous art of the camellia scene. Please make sure to check them out, they are absolutely incredible!


	8. All that i know is i'm breathing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another atypical day in Daichi's life.

The phone beeps at 13:00 sharp like every day. And like every day Daichi is already on his way outside his office to start lunch break, even though his lunch has not arrived yet…

He calls for the elevator and rides down to the ground floor in silence, leg bouncing with his impatience. He was stuck at his bloody desk all day, trying to find loopholes in a pre-nup agreement that was sent to him over 3 days ago. Normally it wouldn’t take him _this_ long to but his mind just keeps…wandering, fixing nowhere and everywhere. Going back to golden eyes. Ennoshita had pointed it out too, after he’d caught Daichi staring outside the window for what must have been the tenth time in fifteen minutes.

He just, he can’t get it out of his head. That look Suga had given him on the stairs to the entrance hall. Shy, a little contemplative, a lot unsure.

_See you later, Daichi-san._

If Daichi hadn’t spoken first, would Suga have said something different. And what, exactly?

_It was really…_

It was really what? Nice? Fun? Absolutely terrible and you are a ‘total bore’?

The elevator doors open to the lobby and Daichi walks over to the surveillance room, that is nothing but a box filled with monitors, separated from the entrance by marble and bulletproof glass.

Noya and Tanaka have already made space for him on the narrow counter, between monitors, a thousand crumbled cups of coffee and empty bags of snacks. Ok, so they tried to make space for him.

It’s the thought that counts after all, say the people who are not forced to sit with their elbow in an empty box of cereals.

“Just in time, Daichi-san!” Tanaka says with a smile through a mouthful of noodles. Charming. “Hinata just appeared on the screen, he’s right outside the door.”

Through the glass Daichi waves Hinata over and the kid waves back, almost risking to drop Daichi’s lunch on the floor.

“Hey, Hinata!”

Hinata bows awkwardly at them all and drops the box that _hopefully_ contains Daichi’s bento on the counter. He lets out a tired huff and attempts one of his usual sunny smiles.

“Sorry i’m late, Daichi-san. I was already halfway here when i noticed i’d taken the wrong bento with me so i had to go back to the shop and take yours and then come back here!” he rambles, so fast Daichi can barely make out the words. He doesn’t really need to anyway, he has this speech pretty much memorized from all the times this has happened.

Hinata is not the most attentive of people.

Daichi pats his shoulder comfortingly and points at the vacant chair in the corner. Hinata lets himself fall there with a grateful sigh.

“Busy day, Shouyou?” Noya asks and at Hinata’s nod he throws a pork bun his way.

“I had to run errands for Washio-san all day. That old man hates me!” Hinata whines with his mouth full.

Daichi grimaces. Why does no one in this room know how to eat properly?

He shoves an entire slice of beef in his mouth.

“And then Kageyama called,” Hinata continues “that idiot had forgotten his jersey at our place so i had to go bring it to him because His Majesty was too busy with practice-”

“Man, i still can’t believe you’re dating a National volleyball player…” Tanaka shakes his head and smirks winningly at the blush spreading on Hinata’s cheeks.

“We are not dating,” Hinata mutters with a pout, like he does every time Tanaka and Noya tease him about his relationship with Kageyama.

“Of course you’re not.”

“I’m not! I’m not dating that mor- oh!” Hinata jumps and an obnoxiously loud tune fills the room. Daichi is pretty sure it’s from Kotetsu Jeeg.

Hinata steps outside to answer the phone but Daichi can still hear the brief, long-suffering assents he gives. It’s probably Washio-san on the other line, that old jerk is the only person capable of making Hinata sound so dejected.

Indeed, as soon as the call is over the poor guy throws his bag over his shoulder and waves miserably at everyone. “I need to go to Meiji, a…client called for a bento so i’ll see you tomorrow.”

Through the bout of sympathy Daichi’s brain registers only one thing. He swallows down his rice fast and asks Hinata, who’s already out the door “Wait, Meiji? The university?”

“Um, yeah. Why?”

Daichi blinks at him, he has no idea how to answer. “I just, um, i just know someone who goes there, that’s all,” he finishes lamely. He can already feel the piercing looks Tanaka and Noya are fixing him with.

“Oh, yeah?” Noya asks and walks closer to Daichi, “And who would that be?”

Tanaka plants himself on Daichi’s other side and smirks. “Couldn’t it be…”

“…that dreamy nanny of yours?”

_Dreamy. What an exaggeration…_

“Oh, Suga-chan…” Noya sighs and flutters his eyelashes, hands joined like in a prayer. “Pretty _and_ smart!”

“Suga-chan?” Hinata echoes, a strange expression on his face. “As in Sugawara Koushi?”

“You know Suga?”

“Sugawara-san is your nanny?”

“I know, right? Daichi-san sure knows how to pick ‘em!”

“Wait, it’s just ‘Suga’ now?”

“Alright, hold on everybody!” Daichi booms and silence falls for a blissful moment. He turns to Hinata again. “How do you know Suga?”

Hinata shrugs, clearly missing the importance of it all. Daichi is not sure he knows it either, but he leans toward Hinata all the same.

“He lives with one of my regular clients. I’ve only seen him a couple of times though,” then, prompted by the obvious interest in Daichi’s eyes, he adds “and he was also Kageyama’s senpai in high school.”

Daichi almost drops his choptsicks on the floor. “Wait. Wait a second. Suga went to Karasuno??”

“Yeah, um, that’s what i said?” Hinata’s eyes have gone as wide as saucers “he and Kageyama played together for a year…”

Daichi knew Suga used to play. He had known, it was obvious by the smart insights he gave, the nostalgic look in his eyes whenever he talked about volleyball. But he had no clue, Suga had never mentioned he’d gone to Karasuno too.

Daichi’s mouth opens into a smile and he lets out a low chuckle. _What a small world…_

“That is so cool!” Noya says, or better, he yells. Tanaka winces at the volume but nods at his words. “What position did he play? Do you know, Shouyou?”

But it’s not Shouyou who answers.

“Setter” Daichi’s words are almost a whisper.

Hinata nods and everyone’s eyes turn to Daichi again. “How did you know?”

Daichi shrugs and a blush makes its way on his face. “Just a lucky guess…”

He can’t really tell the truth now, to them. He can’t say that he remembers the way Suga’s hands had felt, holding onto his. Soft and delicate, too soft for a Wing Spiker, but strong, slight callouses on lovely fingertips.

“Kageyama speaks very highly of him,” Hinata says, a small smile on his lips. “Says he was the best senpai ever. And he’s so pretty too!”

Daichi takes a bite of his poached egg to avoid giving an answer. It’s a pretty obvious one anyway. Of course Suga is pretty. From a purely objective point of view it’s a fact, impossible to deny.

Hinata jumps as his phone rings again and gives a panicked look at the time. “I need to go!” he screeches, then runs away with one last wave. On his way outside he almost trips on his feet and Tanaka and Noya burst out laughing at the sight. The jerks.

“Oh man, that is wild though, about Suga-chan,” Noya says, while still dabbing at his tears.

“Yeah, you really had no idea Daichi-san?”

Daichi shakes his head and eats the rest of his lunch in silence. No, of course he had no idea. He knows so little about this man, even though he sees him almost every day. Come from nowhere, he did, maybe he landed here from outer space, with his weird obsession for shrimps and fluctuating, unpredictable moods. Come from nowhere, carrying a sadness Daichi doesn’t know how to explain, but never letting it affect his smile.

He stands up as soon as he’s done and taps his knuckles on the counter. “Are you two coming on Friday, for Ayame’s birthday?”

Tanaka and Noya nods, with matching wide smiles. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world!” Tanaka says.

Daichi nods too and goes back to his office. As soon as he’s closed the door behind him his phone comes alive with a new message.

**from: Suga**

_Of course…_

**i hope you meant it when you said you’d help me with the cake because i’m buying the ingredients right now and i won’t tolerate any take-backsies**

Attached is a pic of Suga holding a whisk with a threatening expression on his face.

Without thinking Daichi zooms on it, thumb tracing the mole near Suga’s eye. A sigh, and he clicks ‘save’.

 

*

 

 

Friday comes fast, bringing unseasonable heat and the sticky humidity that announces rain.

Daichi wakes covered in sweat, the sheets all bundled up at the edge of the bed. He must have kicked them away in his sleep.

The sky outside the tall window is of a dark purple, tinged a faint pink here and there, the sun still reluctant to show. Daichi taps on his cellphone and bright white numbers stare back at him.

5:30

He groans.

As usual, he woke up way too early.

He’s always been a morning lark, to be honest, not quite a morning person like Noya, who is ready to take the world by storm as soon as his eyes open, but still seemingly _physically_ incapable of sleeping past 7. Not quite ready to get up and be productive, never could figure out the art of going back to sleep after waking up.

The hands of the alarm clock on his bedside table tick and tock. Tick and tock. Daichi squints at the ceiling and bites the inside of his cheek in irritation. And this, this is the reason why, even though he never really wants to, Daichi always ends up getting up anyway before the sun has risen.

Tick. To- he closes the door behind him before he can hear that bloody sound one more time.

Again, as usual, he wanders around the house for a while, stopping in front of the children’s bedroom doors to hear the soft sounds of their breathing. Ayame’s sleep is deep enough that he can even risk opening the door and glance at her silhouette on the bed. Her covers are all on the floor and in the weak morning light Daichi sees her foot dangling down the side of the bed.

He smiles and softly closes the door behind him.

With Kaede, though, he doesn’t dare. Too many times, even when Kaede was just a toddler, Daichi’d come to check on him in the middle of the night only to find him wide awake, standing unsteadily in his crib, eyes shining in the dark. Not making a sound, just looking into nothing then grinning at the sight of his dad.

Daichi leans his forehead on the wooden door and the faint, lulling sound of Kaede’s regular breathing makes Daichi’s heart expand in his chest. Will it ever stop catching him by surprise, the endless amount of love he feels pouring out of him at the simple thought of his children?

The springs of Kaede’s bed squeak and with a smile Daichi walks away, on his tiptoes as not to make too much noise.

The kitchen is already golden with faint sunlight when he finally walks down there to make breakfast, still in his sleeping shorts and a tank top.

He cracks the eggs for the tamagoyaki and starts beating them with a sprinkle of salt and milk. The thin sound of the whisk against the bowl provides a good soundtrack to his thoughts, that start to take a more concrete form now that he’s fully awake.

He worries about how much needs to be done today, he wonders for the hundredth time if he should have hired a professional to entertain the kids after all.

A sunray slithers through the semi-closed courtains to hit the fridge. The jellyfish post-it block that Suga fixed there with tape.

Yesterday he said he’d come by around 10 to get started with the cake. For two days Daichi’s phone was flooded with texts where Suga discussed – more to himself than with him – about the kind of cake to bake. He’d even sent Daichi links to beautiful deserts and ideas for snacks and Daichi had found himself on more than one occasion with his eyes fixed on his cell, waiting for it to buzz again.

He justifies it to himself with a simple: Suga is an entertaining guy. And really, it’s not as though he’s lying. Suga _is_ entertaining. His mind works too fast for his mouth and fingers to follow, so while Daichi is still contemplating an idea, an option, Suga has already put that one aside to explore, to create something entirely new. Then he starts explaining it without prompts so Daichi is more than often left adrift in this colorful, confusing place that is Sugawara Koushi’s mind.

And Daichi hates losing the thread, he hates not knowing where to look or what to say but it’s just so…fun, listening to Suga talk, be the first one to get lost in his own head.

“Why’re you smilin’, dad?”

Daichi starts and almost drops the pan where he’s stir-frying the vegetables. He looks down and stares into Kaede’s big, sleepy eyes.

“Nothing, kiddo. Just thinking about stuff…”

Kaede shrugs his slim shoulders and jumps to sit on his stool. “I tried wakin’ Aya ‘p, she almost punch’d me…” he mutters through a yawn and Daichi takes advantage of his sleepiness to press a kiss in his hair.

“Alright, if she doesn’t come down in 5 minutes i’ll go wake her up myself.”

Kaede nods and clings on the fabric of Daichi’s shirt. Daichi stops, puts the pan down on the counter and lets Kaede rest his head on his chest.

They stay like this for a while, - a long while, a short while, who can say – and at some point Daichi starts swaying. He can feel Kaede’s breath deepen, his body relax in Daichi’s arms…and Ayame appears, stomping down the stairs like a baby rhino, her hair a wild mess but a wide smile on her face.

“It’s my birthday today!” she announces, to them and the whole world.

Kaede opens an eye to glare at her but there’s no real heat in it.

Daichi waves Ayame over and kisses her on the cheek. “Happy birthday, darling. I made your favourite…”

He points at the wide array of bowls – small bowls, little bowls – full of stir-fried vegetables, grilled mackerel, tomatoe salad and pretty much half the reserve of food they had in the fridge and Ayame whoops.

Breakfast is loud, life with Ayame is always loud, and they all forget about the time till their across the street neighbor walks out of his house to go to work and Daichi realizes school starts in 30 minutes. And none of them is dressed yet.

It’s chaos after that, between forgotten pencils and missing shoes, hats playing hide-and-seek.

“Suga-san would know where they are…” Ayame looks around with a thoughtful expression.

Daichi takes a look at the clock above the TV and winces. “Alright, you two. Suga is not here so let’s just go for now and we’ll ask him where they are later!”

They make it for the skin of their teeth to kindergarten, drop off Kaede, then Daichi and Ayame start a light jog to her school.

Pretty much all of Ayame’s classmates are waiting by the gate to wish her happy birthday.

As soon as they see her they all start cheering and Ayame all but flies in one of her teammates’ arms, only to be surrounded by the rest of them in a giant group hug. And Daichi, Daichi can’t help a proud smile at the sight. It’s very, very telling of Ayame’s ability to inspire love in others, how much noise the kids are making, huddled all close to hug her and kiss her cheeks.

Only the arrival of the teacher breaks them up and Daichi tries to apologize for the ruckus but Harakawa-san just smiles and escorts the kids inside. Daichi gives one last kiss to Ayame and goes home to get changed.

Baggy shorts, tight tank top, running shoes and he’s ready to go. It’s been a while since he was able to do this, pretty much since Yurika left. When the kids fall asleep he’ll concede himself an hour in the guest room he turned into a personal gym but a treadmill is so not the same thing as a run in the park.

By the time Daichi gets there the sun is already high in the sky and getting hotter by the minute. He sets the alarm on his phone in exactly an hour from now and starts running as soon as the green extends under his eyes.

It’s a good run, he crosses paths with many college students and is pleased to see he can keep their pace and then some. At one point a duck starts waddling behind him and a little kid points at it with a tinkling laugh. Daichi has to stop and wave it away, back to the pond, and he swears – _he_ _swears_ – the duck looks disappointed by his rejection.

Maybe she was looking for a way out of there, to her monotonous duck life. Too bad she picked the wrong person to follow. Daichi will gladly get the kids a dog, or maybe a kitten when they are a little older but a duck? No way in hell. He’s not a weirdo in an american sitcom.

He passes by the ginkgo tree forest and promises himself to try and make this a regular thing in the fall as well, when the leaves turn a stunning gold, brighter than the sun.

The alarm goes off just as Daichi is near the gate and he keeps up his pace in the city streets as well.

Just rounding the corner to his house though, he pretty much runs over a person and large paper bags fall all around them. A warm hand grabs at his shoulder and instinctively Daichi steadies them putting a hand on their waist.

_His_ waist, actually. Daichi blinks at the familiar golden brown eyes staring into his and lets out an incredulous huff.

“Fancy meeting you here, Suga.”

Suga doesn’t answer, just stands straight on his feet and, after a quick squeeze, lets go of Daichi’s arms with a nod. He’s more than a little red in the cheeks and he looks weirdly out of breath. Perhaps he ran here too, in fear of coming late.

Together they pick up Suga’s bags and go inside.

“Let me just take a shower and we can get started on this cake, alright?”

“Oh so we are not flavoring the cheesecake mousse with your sweat?” Didn’t take long for Suga to find his wit again.

“That’s disgusting,” Daichi comments and walks past the kitchen counter to get to the narrow laundry room in the back. He takes off his stinky shirt and throws it in the hamper, then walks back into the kitchen, headed to the upstair bathroom.

Passing by Suga he hears a loud thump and jumps.

“Suga?” he asks, heart in his throat for the surprise.

Suga is hunched over the sink, both hands pressing on the back of his head where he hit the bottom shelf. From here all Daichi can see is his delicate nape and the tips on his ears, both of which are colored a bright red.

He walks to Suga briskly. “Oh shit, does it hurt bad?”

Suga lets out a small whimper but he shakes his head. Stubborn man.

Daichi opens the freezer for some ice and swiftly puts it in a small plastic bag. “Here, press but not too hard,” he says but he presses the ice on Suga’s head himself. “How much does it hurt?”

Suga seems to have some difficulty looking him in the eyes, his gaze goes from a vague spot on Daichi’s chest to the floor and then again up to his chest. “Not…not much, really. All that noise was mostly due to the bowl i had in my hands falling in the sink…”

Daichi hadn’t even noticed that. “Well, that’s not important. It’s plastic…”

He puts a finger under Suga’s chin and lifts his face to get a good look at him.

Suga’s eyelashes flutter on his cheekbones and it’s impossible for Daichi not to notice how long they are.

“Suga?” he calls.

Suga finally stares up at him, through the thick veil of them and, unexpected, Daichi’s stomach flips.

He clears his throat once, then another time for security and tries to concentrate on the problem at hand.

Luckily Suga’s eyes don’t look unfocused and, Daichi puts the ice down for a second to feel his head, the place where he bumped the shelf doesn’t seem too swollen.

Also his hair is very soft.

“Keep the ice in place, alright?” Suga nods. “I’m going to go shower now. Lie down on the couch if you feel faint or anything.” Another nod.

Daichi climbs up the stairs and only once he’s in front of the mirror he realizes he’s been shirtless in front of Suga this whole time. Well, he shrugs, they are both guys anyway, it’s nothing Suga hasn’t seen before.

He takes off his shorts, then his boxers, and gets under the cold of the shower with a deep, contented sigh.

 

“Are you sure you feel fine?” Daichi asks for the twelfth time in ten minutes.

Suga places the bag of ice in the freezer and throws him an annoyed look. “Yes, yes i’m sure now can we please start?”

Daichi raises his hands in a pacifying gesture and, sensing the underlying embarrassment in Suga’s voice, ties his apron to the waist. It’s the pink, frilly one. After his mother gave him a lecture on toxic masculinity and its stupid stereotypes he grew well out of getting embarrassed just by wearing it. Besides, it’s a present from his _mom_.

Suga is wearing a bright red one, with ‘KISS THE COOK’ written on the front. He doesn’t seem too pleased with it.

“Mine is prettier, i should have brought it…” Suga says with a slight pout on his lips.

“What’s wrong with this one?”

“Nothing, it’s just that mine is better, it has birds and butterflies on it!”

“I thought you were more the shrimps and jellyfish type…” Daichi teases with a smirk.

Suga hip-checks him to get to the whisks and spoons. “I like all animals, but those are my nana’s favourites to embroider.”

“Your nana made your apron?”

Suga nods and his expression opens with a wide, proud smile. “She did, she’s amazing like that. When i was small she used to make most of my clothes so my dad wouldn’t have to buy- um…well, she’s amazing.”

He shrugs his shoulders, suddenly awkward. “She tried to teach me a little but i can only do basic stuff…”

Daichi presses close to him for a moment, in comfort maybe, he’s not sure. Suga is chewing on his lip now, eyes downcast to the sink where he’s washing the bakery tools before using them. There’s a little color on his cheeks again, but Daichi recognizes this as a different kind of embarrassment, one that has more to do with shame.

As if Daichi would care that Suga doesn’t come from money. Daichi doesn’t give a beep about that. “It’s still admirable, i say. I can’t even sew back a button!”

Suga’s lips curve upwards a little and he presses back with his arm against Daichi’s, touching from shoulder to elbow. But it’s brief. Maybe a little too brief.

“Ok, so this is the cake we are going to make!” He wants to change the subject, clearly, and Daichi lets him.

He points at the two pages long recipe he printed in bold, black letters and Daichi is lost just by skimming through the number of ingredients.

He’s always been a good cook, a bon vivant who grew up with the privilege of affording the best food in the best restaurants – although he’s always preferred the simple, traditional things – but the art of baking is something that’s always eluded him.

This especially, this cake looks _way_ out of his capabilities.

“Um…”

Suga nods, apparently a ‘um’ is all he needs to understand. “It’ll be fine, i’m only going to ask for your help for the simplest things.”

Thank God.

“Now pass me the agar-agar for the strawberry gelèe, please.”

Suga holds out his hand, expectant. Daichi blinks at him, at his outstretched hand, and voices his only current thought: “What?”

Suga bites the inside of his cheek but the mirthful twinkling of his eyes betrays him. As does the lovely dimple near the corner of his mouth. He used those words on purpose, the little shit. He knows Daichi has absolutely no idea what they are.

“The only thing i understood there was strawberries!” Daichi hisses with no real irritation.

It’s impossible to be irritated with Sugawara Koushi smiling at you.

“Agar-agar is the other name of the kanten, and gelèe is none other than jello!”

“Then call it jello, for goodness’ sake!” Daichi throws the packet of kanten powder at Suga’s face and Suga promptly catches it with a laugh.

 

Suga keeps good on his word, entrusting Daichi only with elementary tasks like whipping the cream and crumbing the cookies for the base of the cake.

At one point he even puts Daichi in charge of melting the butter on the stove but when he looks up from the yogurt mousse to see what’s taking Daichi so long he understands that even that little was too much.

“What are you doing?” he asks Daichi, with such a reproaching tone Daichi’s feet instinctively twitch to make their way to the nearest corner. Face the wall while the rest of the class snickers.

“I’m melting the butter like you told me to?”

“Yes, _that’s_ what i told you to do, i _didn’t_ tell you to make me beurre noisette!”

Well, it is a little dark.

Suga rolls his eyes and cuts another chunk of butter. “Do it again.”

“And try not to burn it this time!”

“Hey, technically that was not burn-”

Suga fixes him with a piercing look and blindly cuts a perfect brunoise of strawberries. It’s a little intimidating, and something else too that causes Daichi to get a little hot under the collar.

“You’re coming off as really bossy, you know that?”

Suga’s features soften in a smirk but his eyes are still razor sharp. “That’s because i am. All my exes accused me of it at some point.”

Silence, and then “But they sure seemed to like it on some occasions…”

Daichi almost drops the spoon he’s using to melt the butter faster. He chances a look at Suga, but the guy is just cutting strawberries like nothing happen, like no information of dubious meaning was exchanged.

Daichi clears his throat and pushes aside the fleeting image that just appeared in his head. Checks the butter, a clear yellow now, and moves it away from the flame. A couple of seconds longer and he would have risked to burn it again.

He can’t afford to do that now.

 

“But are you sure they will like it?”

“I’m sure Ayame will like it, since it’s the kind of cake she asked for and besides, with all the snacks and sweets we have it’s not like the kids will starve at this party if they skip the cake!”

Daichi opens his mouth to reply, then thinks better of it and keeps mixing the mascarpone cheese with sugar. “What am i doing this for, by the way?”

Suga smiles at him, probably charmed by his lost puppy expression, and points at the mini cakes he just took out of the oven. “It’s the topping for the cupcakes, Daichi-san.”

“And the things you put in the fridge before? The round ones?”

A deep sigh. Clearly this has already stopped being charming. “Those are cake balls. And-” he adds before Daichi can ask anything else “yesterday i bought a good number of manju shaped like kittens and bears and daifuku as well. As soon as i’m done with this cake i’ll start making some dorayaki too so will you please relax?!”

In his exasperation he presses the start button of the mixer without noticing the lid isn’t on and suddenly there are strawberries everywhere. Soaring, flying…and landing right on Daichi’s face.

For a moment he and Suga both stay still with shock, not really registering what just happened, then Suga brings his hands up to cover his mouth. He looks torn between amusement and shame, entertained by the sight before him and mortified at his own clumsiness – _and getting strawberries on his employer’s face_.

“Oh God, Daichi-san i’m so sorry!” He’s not even done apologizing that he’s already bent in half with laughter.

It’s clear which emotion won and his words hardly feel honest right now.

Daichi passes the hem of his apron on his face and cringes at how sticky his face feels. “Was this revenge for burning your butter, Suga?”

Suga has to grip the counter not to fall on his ass, he’s laughing even harder now.

With a brusque movement Daichi pushes Suga aside and puts the lid on the mixer. It’s better if he mashes these bloody strawberries himself.

Suga straightens and dabs at his eyes. He’s pressing his lips tight shut, doesn’t let out another sound but his shoulders are still shaking a little. Daichi rolls his eyes and gets back to work.

“Um, Daichi-san?” Suga calls him a few minutes later and Daichi is pleased to see he’s regained his composure. Finally.

“Yes?”

“You still have some…strawberry on your face.”

_Damn it._

Daichi wipes his jaw, near his ear, but Suga shakes his head and takes a step closer. Two steps. He raises a hand and brushes his thumb across Daichi’s cheek, in a broad gesture that goes from his cheekbone to the corner of his mouth.

It’s weird, the warmth of his hand can be felt without touch but his fingertips are cold even in this heat. They must turn into icicles in the winter.

And Suga is lingering. Near Daichi’s lips Suga lingers and Daichi could not swear it, his head is kind of a mess right now, but he thinks he sees Suga’s eyes stop there as well. On his lips.

He doesn’t know why that thrills him. It shouldn’t.

It doesn’t.

Suga moves away and Daichi does too. On Suga’s thumb strawberry slush, bright red, dripping down to his palm, leaving a sticky trail behind.

Daichi waits for him to lick it, eyes fixed in Suga’s, and for a moment Suga seems to contemplate it. Then he takes a napkin and wipes the red off with it.

Daichi is relieved. Or at least he should be.

 

Daichi goes to pick Kaede up from kindergarten and at their return they find everything, all kinds of goods, ready to be displayed.

Yes, in the mere twenty minutes it took Daichi to come and go from Kaede’s school, Suga managed to glaze the cake balls and cover them with pistachio grain, prepare ten – yes, ten – dorayaki, color the cupcakes icing _and_ create tempered chocolate decorations.

How?

“How?”

Suga looks up from the cake he’s frosting with whipped cream and smiles at the awe in Daichi’s voice. There’s a smudge of chocolate near his chin. “This is not my first time doing this, Daichi-san!” he says with a wink, and puts out a stool for Kaede to sit on so he can see better.

Kaede’s jaw is hanging open too and his eyes are sparkling as he takes in everything Suga has done so far.

“What do you think, Kaede?” Suga asks, and Daichi notices the edge of uncertainty in his voice.

“It’s so amazing! Everything!” Kaede tweets, loud like Daichi has rarely heard him, and Suga’s smile turns into a brilliant beam.

“Really?”

His happiness is so bright both Daichi and Kaede have to look away for a moment.

“Daichi-san,” Suga taps him on the shoulder to catch his attention and suddenly he’s all business again, “the only salty snacks left to do are sandwiches so if you could take care of that, it’d be great.”

It’s not really a request as much as it is an order. Daichi nods anyway and gets to it immediately, because if there is one thing he’s learned in the past four hours is not to mess with Suga when he’s on a mission. In this they are really quite similar.

“What do you say you help me decorate the cupcakes, Kaede?” Suga gestures to the little chocolate and vanilla cakes near him, still without frosting, and Kaede nods so hard Daichi’s afraid his neck will snap.

They stand at opposite ends of the kitchen island, Daichi buttering and filling sandwich after sandwich with ham, mayo, slices of salmon, boiled eggs, and Suga and Kaede – Kaede standing on the stool – making swirls of frosting with the sac-à-poche.

Sometimes Suga will reach out and steal some salmon or olives for him and Kaede to munch on and sometimes Daichi will yell at them to ‘stop eating the food for the guests’ but most times he’ll just look away, toward the kitchen wall, to hide a smile.

It’s nice, really nice, this easy atmosphere between them. Suga just…fit into their life so seemlessly, it’s as if he’s been here the whole time, in a way. There are still awkward moments between them, but the peace he’s brought in this house is something Daichi does not take for granted. He should remember to thank Suga, next time they’re alone.

Suga moves to take a cube of daikon in the exact moment as Daichi and their fingers brush together, just for a second. At once Suga pulls away and apologizes with a crooked, uncertain smile.

Daichi also needs to do his _damned_ _best_ not to mess this equilibrium up in any way. He gives Suga a quick, dismissive nod and butters the next slice of bread without a word.

It’s already perfect like this, _exactly_ the way it is.

“Why don’t we make small puffs on these ones instead of one, big swirl?”

From the corner of his eye Daichi sees Kaede nod enthusiastically and watch Suga use the sac-à-poche with poorly veiled amazement. He puts the sandwich down on the counter and stops to watch too. Suga moves like a real pro, his grip on the sac-à-poche steady, the flick of his wrist confident and smooth.

Daichi can’t not ask. “How did you get so good at this, Suga?”

Suga grins and without thinking he says “My first boyfriend worked in a bakery, he taught some tricks-” Then he looks down at Kaede, alarmed, then up at Daichi. “Um…”

He’s gone a little pale.

Daichi makes to walk over to him, he remembers all too well Suga fainting in his arms, how it’d felt what now seems like a lifetime ago. But Suga shakes his head and gestures for him to stay put. His eyes, though, they are still nervous, searching for his.

Daichi holds his gaze and tells him exactly what he needs to hear. “Suga, it’s fine.”

It is. Please, believe it.

Suga nods, slow, and looks down at the counter again.

“Alright,” he whispers and arranges the sac-à-poche better in his hands. “Alright.”

“Suga-san?” Kaede tugs at the hem of his shirt carefully. “Can i do the next one?”

_Kaede cares even less than i do_ , Daichi wants to tell him. He wants to reassure Suga that the people he dates, the fact that he’s attracted to men will never make Daichi think any less of him, will never cause Kaede or Ayame to stop being so fond of him. He doesn’t, in the end.

Suga has come to stand behind Kaede and is showing him how to do a perfect swirl, and Daichi knows he doesn’t need to say anything. Kaede already said it all, without having to utter a single word on the matter.

 

“Daichi-san could you move the furniture in the living-room? As you can see i’m just so busy with this cake!”

The cake is almost done, but Sugawara Koushi would say anything to get out of muscle work. Daichi rolls his eyes in his direction but goes in the other room anyway.

It only takes him a couple of minutes to move the couch under the window and push the TV closer to the wall. The loveseat and his father’s armchair, along with the carpet, are brought in the safety of the guest room. The Ming vase on the top shelf goes in Daichi’s study – not that any of the kids are tall enough to reach it but it’s a family heirloom and he can’t risk it – and the long table from the dining room is arranged against the wall near the kitchen. Daichi covers it with a long, white linen tablecloth and peeks into the kitchen to see if Suga and Kaede have anything ready to put there.

“Ayame and her classmates should be here in ten minutes,” Daichi informs them and Suga throws him a glare from the cake he’s still busy decorating. Considering how many people were invited, a single, round cake wouldn’t have been enough so Suga decided to make two, almost identical cakes.

Daichi stops by his side to take a look at them and he has to admit that they couldn’t have possibly looked better if they’d come from a bakery. He tells Suga and Suga gives him a crooked, half shy smile that shows his dimples in the prettiest way.

Wow, Daichi should really compliment him more.

Wait, did he really just think ‘wow’?

Daichi focuses on the food again. “I can take the sandwiches, right?”

Suga nods and briefly puts his hand on Daichi’s forearm. “Yes, take everything. I’ll help as soon as i’m done here!”

They have just set down the last things on the buffet table that the lively buzzing of voices reaches their ears.

Suga throws an half excited, half terrified look at the door. Daichi can sympathize. In less than a few second their living room will be invaded by no less than thirty kids and honestly, what else is there to feel?

Someone knocks on the door three times and Daichi already knows who it is without having to open. Yurika always hated the trilling of the doorbell.

Sure enough here she is, right in front of him, in all her beauty. Smiling at him and with an long line of kids in tow.

“Hello, Daichi,” she says, her voice soft, and leans into him to press a kiss on his cheek.

“Hello, Yurika.”

“Daddy! You didn’t tell me mom was gonna pick me up!” Ayame is beaming, and runs to hug his waist with her usual enthusiasm.

“I didn’t? Really?”

The surprise sure worked. He and Yurika exchange a look and a wink, then gesture for the guests to come in and make themselves comfortable.

An endless chorus of “Hello, Sawamura-san!” greets him and he nods and smiles at all the kids that pass him by, shakes the hands of the parents and shows them where to put their jackets.

“And this is Suga-san! He’s my nanny!” Ayame is proclaiming, voice so loud it could probably be heard all the way across the street.

Daichi turns around to see if Suga needs any assistance but he looks unbothered by the thirty-plus kids surrounding him and looking up at him like he’s an exotic bird at the zoo. He just introduces himself with an adorable “hi, i’m Suga!” waves at everyone and smiles.

It’s dimples galore.

From where he’s standing the light coming in from the open curtains reflects charmingly on his hair, tinging it white and gold, and he honestly looks like a vision from a dream. Objectively speaking.

Daichi hears more than a few kids – both girls and boys – sigh at the view and, in all conscience, he can hardly blame them…

“So that’s him,” Yurika’s voice comes from far away, even though she’s only a few steps behind him. Her eyes are narrowed, intensely sharp. The lines around them stand out, deeper than he remembers them.

“Yeah that’s, um, that’s Suga.”

She moves closer, till they are standing side by side, shoulders brushing. “It’s just Suga now?”

He doesn’t like her tone. “Yes, it’s just Suga now. We’ve become…sort of friends in the past few weeks.”

“Oh. That’s nice.”

That’s it. Nice. Well, of course it’s nice. It’s a good thing, that Daichi came to like the guy who looks after their children. It would be worrying, not to mention difficult, if he didn’t. But he does, so.

“It is nice. _He_ is nice.”

Yurika nods and doesn’t say more, instead she walks to Suga, through the small crowd of children he’s trying to redirect to the buffet, and reaches out to shake his hand.


	9. All that i know is i'm breathing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Party.

“So you…you are a documentarist, that’s wonderful!”

Daichi stands near Suga and Yurika and winces at the squeaky quality of Suga’s voice. He wasn’t being dishonest in his compliment, not at all, but for the past five minutes Yurika has been answering him only in monosyllables and it’s clear he’s starting to get a little panicky.

“Yes, it is.” Yurika takes a sip of her water, her eyes never leaving Suga’s face.

“And what, um, what animals did you film in Africa?”

“Birds.” She means to leave it at that, ‘’birds’’, but at Daichi’s glare she adds “Burchell’s starlings, they are found mostly in the southern states…”

“Oh i’m not really familiar with them but i’m sure it was an experience…?”

“Yes, it was.”                                          

_For crying out loud…_

“Yurika…” Daichi hisses and it’s a warning as much as it is a reproach.

He is not surprised, he can’t say that he is. Yurika was far from thrilled when she found out he’d hired a new nanny without her approval, because in her contorted mind he should have waited for her to get back, he should have waited two bloody months to find someone else to take care of the children while he was at work, and in the meantime? Well, in the meantime…he should have just dealt with it somehow.

In moments like this it’s all too clear why they divorced.

He’s about to say something more to her – and not exactly something kind – when a small voice interrupts him and this poor excuse of a conversation.

“Suga-san?”

It’s a kid from Ayame’s class who spoke, on the small side – must be at least three inches shorter than Ayame - with round glasses and long, thick hair that curls around his ears. Daichi recognizes him only vaguely, he’s not one of Ayame’s closest friends but she once pointed at him near the school gate and told Daichi he was the only person in her class to get full score in all the subjects. Hiro something. Hiroshi…Hiroaki…

“Yes, Hiroki?”

_Hiroki, close enough._

Under Suga’s gaze Hiroki blushes a little and starts fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. It’s to the tips of his shoes that he asks “Ayame told me you’re half french, is it true?”

Suga keeps quiet but nods, forcing Hiroki to look up at him again. His entire frame has relaxed since the kid showed up, he seems relieved for the distraction and the soft smile he directs Hiroki-kun’s way is even a touch grateful. Pretty too.

“Do you know any french?” Hiroki asks again, this time a little surer, a little louder.

“I do, I’ve been studying it for years!”

“Hiroki! Don’t hog all of Suga-san’s attention!” Ayame’s voice comes booming from the opposite side of the room, where everyone is busy eating. “I want to know what you’re talking about!”

“Ayame, don’t yell,” Yurika, Daichi and Suga all scold her in unison, and Daichi sees a fleeting, vaguely irritated look cross Yurika’s face.

Suga puts a hand on Hiroki-kun’s shoulder and walks with him in direction of the buffet. “What do you say i teach you some french rhymes?” Daichi hears him ask before being surrounded by kids once again.

“Suga-san is nice, mom,” Kaede suddenly says. He’s been standing quietly by Daichi’s side, clinging tightly to the fabric of his jeans ever since the guests showed up, but there’s an almost fierce look in his eyes now, as he stares up at his mother.

“I’m sure he is, darling,” she agrees but the line of her mouth has gotten hard, her posture stiff.

It’s clear Kaede’s words unsettled her, this whole situation is unsettling her. Daichi would be a lot more sympathetic if he hadn’t just witnessed the total cold shoulder she gave Suga. Hell, it was so obvious even a four year old picked up on it.

He fixes Yurika with a severe look. “We should do some mingling,” he tells her. Meaning, ‘i think i should walk away now because this is not the appropriate setting for the fight i know is coming’.

Yurika must sense his tone and at her awkward nod Daichi attempts a polite smile. He’s sure it must result more similar to a grimace. In silence he takes Kaede’s hand in his and goes to talk to some of the parents that came to celebrate his daughter.

 

His mother shows up fashionably late as usual, with a trolley full of presents and arm in arm with two very familiar faces.

“We met outside the train station, can you believe it, Daichi-san?”

“Not really, Noya, no.”

“These two handsome gentlemen swooped in out of nowhere, just to help out an old lady like me…” Sawamura Sachiko says, only to hear Tanaka and Noya reassure her that no, she is not old, she could easily pass for Daichi-san’s sister, and the likes.

Daichi rolls his eyes at her antics and lets her pull him into one of her usual rib-cracking bear hugs while Tanaka and Noya hurry up inside.

“Oh sweetheart, you look great!” his mother tells him with a joyful smile, cradling his face in her hands and looking at it from every angle.

“Really?” he manages to mutter. It’s rare of his mother to say that about him, not that she would _ever_ say something downright bad about her only son but she usually has a lot to scold him for, always in this order: the bags under his eyes, his complexion, how ‘’thin’’ he’s gotten since the last time she saw him.They see each other every couple of weeks, and Daichi hasn’t lost a single pound since Kaede was born and he was too busy taking care of him and Ayame to eat properly.

“Absolutely, oh i’m relieved, i was really starting to worry about you!” she says and gives him a sharp slap on the arm. As if worrying about him has not been her favourite hobby for 33 going on 34 years.

“Nana!” comes a yell from far away, only warning for him to move before Ayame and Kaede run him over in their haste to get to their grandma.

He makes it at the very last second, for the skin of his teeth, plastered on the front door.

His mother is laughing as the kids fly in her arms and in this moment she really could pass for his sister, in this light she’s the mom who used to pick him up from school again, the mom all his schoolmates had a crush on.

Daichi smiles and watches her squeeze her grandchildren tight to her chest, cover their faces with lipstick-sticky kisses.

“Nana, no!”

“Nana yes, Kaede, i haven’t seen you in so long!”

_Always so dramatic…_

Daichi laughs and quickly ushers them all inside.

He looks around for Tanaka and Noya to see where they ran off to and, sure enough, finds they have already made themselves comfortable near the buffet and are currently…yes, of course they are currently hassling Suga.

Dread fills Daichi to the brim.

He stamps a quick kiss on his mom’s cheek and excuses himself, makes his way to those three as fast as he can.

“And then, out of nowhere, the fire alarm starts ringing and everybody goes nuts…”

_Oh_ _no._

He quickens his pace.

“We all gather outside, confused and terrified…”

_No no no._

“Little do we know that it was our well-respected captain who-”

“ALRIGHT! Alright!”

Tanaka and Noya freeze at the sound of his voice and Suga slaps a hand on his mouth to cover the laughter that is already making his shoulders shake.

Damn it, Daichi was too late.

“You…” Suga is wheezing, “you pulled the fire alarm…while fighting with another boy?”

Tears are gathering in the corners of his eyes, Daichi can see them twinkle in the light.

“Yes, and hear this, they were fighting over the last pork bun left in the cafeteria!” Nishinoya stage-whispers to him, fear clearly forgotten before Suga’s amusement.

“Oh my God…”

“Nishinoya i swear i’m going to end-”

“Daddy!” Ayame calls him from the centre of the living room, effectively interrupting his threat.

“One second, darling!” he answers her with a smile, turns to face Nishinoya and Tanaka again and glares his best glare. His eyes stay fixed on them until they look suitably terrified, shaken even, then, and only then, he walks away.

Suga’s hilarity explodes in a loud, undignified cackle as soon as Daichi has turned his back on him.

His glares, his fury have no power on Suga, not anymore.

Daichi is so going to kill Tanaka and Noya for this. Slowly, and painfully.

“Daddy,” Ayame repeats when Daichi is closer to her.

“What is it, love?”

A couple of Ayame’s classmates standing near snort at his words. Ayame’s cheeks turn crimson.

Oh-oh.

“Daddy, I need you and the other adults to leave…” Ayame – his _daughter_ , blood of his blood – tells him, wide brown eyes pleading and nervous fingers torturing her hair.

Daichi’s expression drops even more, along with his mood. “What?”

“W-well, you see, i’m nine now. I can’t have my parents at my birthday party, that’s embarrassing!”

Oh God, this is his worst fear realized. But he thought…he thought he’d have more time to prepare for this…

Ayame takes his hand in hers and squeezes it comfortingly. “Can you please send all the grown-ups in the kitchen?”

And with a heavy heart Daichi does, because his daughter asked him to and he can never say no to her, but especially not today. He takes his mother’s arm and leads her and the other over-10s (plus Kaede) in the kitchen. As soon as his mother catches sight of his expression she asks, with a touch of misplaced irony, “Jeez, Dai, who died?”

_My_ _dreams_ _that_ _Ayame_ _would_ _stay_ _little_ _forever_ , he almost says. In the end he just shrugs, too dejected to speak.

 

“I told Kobayashi-san that in doing so the worth of our stocks would drop but would he listen to me? Of course not!”

Daichi wants to die. Or at the very least faint, drop unconscious at this man’s feet so he won’t have to listen to one more word he has to say. Ever.

Kaede has long abandoned him in favor of Suga, who’s busy having a very serious conversation about plants with his mother. Daichi can’t blame the poor kid, in the five minutes he managed to resist Nobu-san must have mentioned the PIL eight times at the very least. Eight times. The PIL. Man, economists are such a bore.

Daichi squints at Nobu-san’s face to make it look like he’s listening very carefully and nods at every – too brief - pause the man takes.

“And then the Stock Market had a small blip, so we had to run for cover…”

Behind Nobu-san’s shoulders Suga is laughing at something Daichi’s mother said. Kaede is smiling too, a lot more relaxed now that he’s in a much less noisy and numerous crowd. They are standing close, he and Kaede, and from time to time Kaede will tug at Suga’s sleeve and add something to his story and Suga will smile, that soft, amazed smile he still gets whenever Kaede talks to him.

As though he’s felt the insistence of Daichi’s gaze on him Suga turns to him and smirks, eyes shining with amusement. Daichi must have desperation written all over his face.

Suga leans toward Daichi’s mother again and says something that has both her and Kaede snickering. Then he signals for them to wait and makes his way to him.

_Oh thank all the gods, old and new._

“Excuse me,” Suga tells Nobu-san with a courteous smile on his lips, “i need to borrow Daichi-san for a moment. Party plannings, you know?” He winks at the man with careless complicity.

Nobu-san blinks at him, then clears his throat twice. “Yes, yes of course, Suga-san.”

_Took him three months to remember my name is Daichi but Suga’s name, he memorizes it upon first meeting…_

Suga grabs Daichi’s arm gently and leads him to his mother and Kaede. “I’m not sure when we should serve the cake, Daichi-san!” he asks loud enough for Nobu-san to hear.

“Oh, i hadn’t thought about that, Suga-san!” Daichi replies, just as loud.

Then he tilts his head in Suga’s direction to whisper in his ear “I’m in your debt, _Suga_.”

He’s so close now he can smell the delicate scent of Suga’s hair. It’s something flowery, maybe, fresh too. Like a spring breeze, the one that caresses your cheeks and takes you miles away from the fusty of the city, it lingers on Suga’s body as though he spent the morning rolling around in a meadow in full bloom.

Daichi wouldn’t be surprised if Suga told him that’s exactly what happened.

Suga bites his lip, oblivious to Daichi’s strange train of thoughts, and his eyes glitter with mischief. “Does that mean i get a raise?”

Daichi snorts and bumps their shoulders together. “You are a leech!”

Suga throws his head back and laughs. Daichi looks at the dimples on his cheeks, the long, pale column of his throat and the mole near his eye that took him days to notice. Daichi looks at Suga, and misses the stares of the people around them.

 

“So let me get this straight, Suga-kun,” his mother pauses, throws a disbelieving glance at Daichi, then proceeds, skepticism reeking from every word, “my son helped you plant a camellia? My son, the flora killer, willingly helped you plant?”

Suga chuckles, high and a little breathy, and nods, “Yes, Sawamura-san. And, hear this, _he_ was the one who offered to help!”

“You’re kidding!”

“No, no, Kaede tell her!”

Kaede’s shoulders are shaking, have been since this conversation started. “I-It’s true, nana. Daddy asked Suga-san if he needed help and Suga-san said yes, so they planted together and they took _so_ long but daddy did really well.”

Daichi smiles brilliantly at his son, the _only_ _person_ in this family he can always count on. “Thank you, kiddo.”

“Yeah, he did well. The plant is still alive! But maybe that’s because of Suga-san…”

“Oh come on! I did well, you said, just stop there!”

His mom, Kaede and Suga all laugh at him and he crosses his arms on his chest, arranging his features into an expression of annoyance he doesn’t really feel.

“Aw come on honey, you know i love you but you and plants don’t exactly get along…” his mom says and puts a comforting hand on his shoulder.

Suga mimicks her and squeezes his other shoulder playfully. “That’s an understatement, i had to tell him the names of every plant we got, he couldn’t even recognize ivy!”

“Oh, Daichi…”

Kaede hides his face in Suga’s side, he’s shaking now with a bad case of the giggles. Instinctively Suga places a hand on his head and starts stroking his hair. “But hey, at least you could tell the iris apart-” he’s about to say more but all of a sudden he looks down and freezes.

It’s easy to understand why.

Kaede has stopped laughing.

Suga moves his hand away, at once, and apologizes softly to him.

Silence falls between the four of them, then Kaede looks up at Suga and takes his hand, places it on his head again with pink-tinged cheeks.

Daichi lets out the breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding and he hears his mother do the same right next to him.

Before their eyes Suga lights up, the brightest thing Daichi has ever known, and pushes Kaede’s bangs away from his forehead, cards his fingers through his hair, soft and still a little tentative. Kaede’s eyes turn heavy and close sluggishly from time to time, he looks so much like a sleepy cat purring on his owner’s lap.

Daichi looks from him to Suga, once, twice. He takes them in and his heart feels both lighter than it has been in years and inexplicably heavy. It has sprouted wings, but what does it matter, how can it matter when it’s forced in a self-imposed cage?

Suga meets his eyes, an almost incredulous expression on his face.

_I’m not sure what just happened, i’m not sure how it happened._

Daichi reads it in the curve of his mouth, the crease of his eyes. He knows what Suga is asking, _if_ he’s asking, but he has no idea what to tell him.

How _did_ this all happen?

This is just yet another answer Daichi doesn’t have. So he keeps quiet. What else can he do?

 

Suga makes a quick round of the kitchen to serve the few things that have remained of the beautiful buffet he so carefully prepared and now it’s the grown-ups’ turn to surround him like a pack of vultures to try and reclaim his attention.

“Oh my, Sugawara-kun, these cupcakes are a delight!”

“Absolutely, and don’t even get me started on the little round cakes on the stick!”

“Delicious!”

“Sawamura-san,” a woman appearing out of nowhere puts a hand on Daichi’s arm “where did you find him?”

Nobu-san, standing by Daichi’s other side, interjects. “I’m tempted to just forget all manners and steal him from you, Daichi.”

_Yeah, i’d like to see you try…_

Daichi forces a smile and excuses himself to walk by Suga’s side. “If one more person asks me to ‘lend you’ to them i swear i’m going to scream.”

The corners of Suga’s mouth twitch upward. “Tell them i’m not something to be borrowed, but that i would gladly give a sample of my DNA for clonation.”

“So what you are really saying is that you have no intention of leaving us, even for the promise of a better salary?”

“Nah, i’ve grown too attached to the kids…”

Before he can really think this through, Daichi half teases half asks “Only to the kids?”

Suga doesn’t answer but the color on the tips of his ears is enough to make Daichi’s stomach twist in pleasure. Alright so he has to leave now.

He takes a tray from Suga’s hand. “I’ll, um, i’ll go bring this to the children.”

Suga nods and his bangs fall to hide his eyes. The blush, Daichi notices, has spread all the way to his cheeks.

As soon as Daichi steps foot inside the living room where all the kids (except Kaede) are assembled his ears are bombarded by the sheer volume of 30+ voices all talking at the same time and he has to lower his head to avoid getting hit right in the eye by a paper plane.

“Ooooh look how far away it went!”

“Hello, Sawamura-san!”

“Hello, kids” Daichi gives the little crowd an awkward wave and gestures to the tray in his hand, “there are still a couple of things here if you have some space left in your stomachs!”

Apparently everybody does. Daichi hasn’t even finished the sentence yet that they are all running toward him. It’s frankly a little terrifying.

“Ok, so i’m going to put this on the table…”

_…before it all falls on the floor…_

“There’s a more here!” Suga’s voice sing-songs behind him and sure enough the kids start crowding around him instead. He lowers his tray with a smile and unexpected grace and tells the kids to take whatever they want. “But leave some room for the cake!”

“Suga-san, did you make it like i told you?” Ayame asks from the backlines, her eyes shining.

“Absolutely, strawberry and cream like you said!”

“So Suga-san made your cake?”

“Wow, my parents always buy it!”

Ayame puffs her chest and proudly looks each of her friends in the eyes. “Yes, Suga-san made my cake. Isn’t he amazing?”

It’s almost a threat her question, like she’s challenging everyone to disagree with her.

Suga moves to put his tray on the table as well and murmurs “If that cake sucks i’m going to tell them it was all your fault for burning the butter, Daichi-san…”

The cake ball Daichi had ‘subtly’ shoved in his mouth gets stuck in his throat and he has to sputter around it to get any words out. “I d-didn’t,” a cough, “i didn’t burn it, damn it! And in any case, i made more and it was fine!”

“Daddy, did you just say ‘damn it’?” Ayame asks it loud, loud even for her, and Daichi can see the mischief dancing in her eyes.

“Don’t repeat it, Ayame!”

Ayame turns to Suga, looking for support, but Suga gives her a stern look and puts his hands on his hips. “Your father is right, Ayame. It’s not good of you to say it!”

“But dad did!”

“Yeah but your father is also, like, forty-”

“Don’t you go there, Suga!”

“I’m just kidding, Daichi-san. You don’t look a day over thirty-five!”

“I’m thirty-three!”

“Ooops…”

“Alright, alright! Are you two done arguing yet?” Ayame asks and she even goes so far as to copy Daichi’s stern face, from the tense furrow of his brow to the severe line of his mouth. It’s pretty uncanny, especially if you take into account how much Ayame looks like him, but sadly for her that only manages to make both Daichi and Suga coo.

“You look so adorable like this, Ayame!”

“See, Suga? She is all her father!”

Ayame huffs and now her scowl is real. “You two are so embarrassing!”

“Mission accomplished,” Suga tells him and can barely hold back laughter when Daichi closes his hand into a fist for a celebratory fistbump.

Ayame makes a show of stomping her foot in irritation but soon one of her friends walks over to her and whispers something in her ear and just like that she finds her smile again.

She looks up at Daichi with her best, most irresistible puppy eyes and Daichi knows, he feels it in his bones, that nothing good will come from her next request.

“Daddy,” oh, suddenly he’s ‘daddy’ again, “Mika and i were talking earlier about how much fun we had at the karaoke that time” – _oh_ _shit_ _no_ – “so i really, really need you to set ours up!”

A pregnant pause.

“But dad, please don’t sing…”

There it is.

How many low blows can a man suffer in one day exactly?

 

It takes him a good five minutes to set the karaoke and fix the volume on the microphones. Suga refuses to help, on the basis that apparently ‘electrical devices love to either die or explode around him’ so he has to call Tanaka and Nishinoya for assistance, which is honestly never a good idea.

“Where have you two been anyway?” Daichi asks while they are all kneeling behind the TV set with matching lost looks on their faces.

“Oh we were assembling the swing set for Ayame!” Tanaka whispers and flips a switch that finally makes the TV come alive. Except it’s only a blank, electric blue screen staring back at them.

Tanaka and Noya scratch their heads together and, as though summoned by their puzzlement and Daichi’s quiet desperation, Yurika comes, throws an amused look their way and tells them in her most laconic voice, “You need to insert that plug, then press the red button on the karaoke machine.”

If she had concluded her sentence with a ‘duh’ she couldn’t have made them feel more stupid.

Still, they do as she says.

“That’s done, Daichi-san!” Noya yells – what reason does he have to always yell?? – crawling in front of the TV. “It’s the introductory page to the karaoke, it’s telling us to pick a song!”

“Alright then, let’s get out of here.”

“You’re welcome, boys,” and with that Yurika walks to the opposite side of the room again, where she was talking with Kaede about God knows what.

Daichi is still brushing some dust off his pants that the first notes of a song by UVERworld have already started filling the air. He swiftly moves away from the TV set. Despite the offense he’d taken at his daughter’s words he really, desperately doesn’t want anything to do with this.

He only performed at a karaoke bar twice and both times he’d gotten absolutely shitfaced drunk beforehand. And still it was a traumatic experience. Both times.

A too familiar voice starts to sing along, not really in time with the music.

Apparently being the birthday girl has given Ayame the privilege of performing first.

Daichi leans back on the nearest wall and looks at her, claps and whoops whenever Ayame includes dance moves into her show.

She is not exactly the best singer, only Kaede somehow escaped the curse that runs in the Sawamura family, and it’s not like Yurika’s singing voice is any better, so really Ayame was kind of doomed from the start, but she is just so charismatic it’s impossible not to cheer her on.

She jumps, she gestures for her friends to clap and they all do. Two of her closest friends, Chiharu and Mika, start dancing, each on one side so Ayame is in the middle, and soon half the kids follow. For the last verse Ayame all but thrusts her mic in little Hiroki’s face and after a moment he starts singing too, just as off-key, and a little nasal but he looks like he’s having so much fun, they all do, and by the end of the song they get a standing-ovation.

Suga is jumping up and down, hands cupped around his lips and asking from the top of his lungs for an encore. Tanaka nd Noya are having some kind of competition on who can whistle for longer and in a more obnoxious manner. Daichi’s mother, with a laughing Kaede in her arms, is yelling too, stuff like ‘’that’s my granddaughter’’ and ‘’you go, honey’’ and it’s so her Daichi can’t help a laugh.

Then his eyes fall on Yurika again, leaning on the kitchen doorframe, weirdly mimicking his position, and they exchange a fond smile. Daichi gestures to Ayame with a jerk of his chin, as if to say ‘’can you believe our daughter?’’ and she chuckles and shakes her head, her own eyes full of fondness.

Can you believe we made her?

The first thing Daichi had asked her soon after Ayame was born, while they were still in that white hospital room. It’s nine years today since that day and a part of Daichi still can’t believe it. Everything has changed since then, he has changed, Yurika has changed, their relationship burned down fast, leaving only the ashes of a love that never felt bone-deep, but he will never stop being grateful for what Yurika gifted him. Their daughter, their son, the bone-deep, terrifying joy of being a father.

Yurika looks at him and maybe she’s thinking the same thing he is, maybe not, but there’s finally an honest smile on her face now and that, to him, is enough. She always looks more beautiful when she’s smiling. He winks at her, and she winks back, then they look away and clap at Hiroki, who’s taken the mic and the stage for himself, with Mika still dancing by his side.

 

Singers come and go, both bad and abysmal, a few decent but all fun. A tall girl from Ayame’s volleyball team delivers an amazing performance of an english rap song Daichi doesn’t recognize but has Suga singing along with fervor. Nobu-san sings a soulful rendition of Calling that has everybody in the room weeping from laughter, who knew the guy had it in him?, and even Daichi’s mom takes the mic and forces every grown-up in the room to sing along with her to Sendo Kawaiya.

It’s to Ayame’s request, really, that Suga finds himself at the centre of the room, with the blue of the TV reflecting on his face and a mic in his hands.

“Come on, Suga-san, please!” Ayame tugs on the hem of his shirt and looks up at him with wide, imploring eyes. Kaede joins her plea as well, and then Hiroki-kun, and then half the room, with Tanaka, Noya and Nobu-san being the loudest of the bunch.

Suga sighs into his mic then tells Tanaka to show him the options. It doesn’t take long for him to find the perfect song and as soon as the first notes start Daichi feels laughter bubbling in his chest. Of course Suga would pick something like this, Daichi shouldn’t have expected any less from him.

An applause starts, prompted by the choice of song maybe, or maybe by the adorable shimmy shake Suga is doing, and without even looking at the lyrics on screen Suga starts to sing.

“The seaweed is always greener in somebody else’s lake!”

He points flashingly at Ayame, who is absolutely beaming at him, “You dream about going up there, but that is a big mistake!”

“Just look at the world around you, right here on the ocean floor!”

The kids all stand on their feet and start dancing around him, some even form a little train, singing in chorus with him.

By the time the refrain starts everyone has joined.

“Under the sea! Under the sea!”

Suga makes eye contact with Tanaka, who’s dancing close by, and sings teasingly at him “Darling it’s better down where it’s wetter,” a slow hip-check, “take it from meee!”

Tanaka laughs, his cheeks all red, and Nishinoya whistles, then walks to him to give him a suggestive nudge that Tanaka shakes off with an embarrassed squack.

Suga makes a quick round of the room, dances with Ayame’s classmates, makes Ayame do little twirls, and does an outline of Samba with Nobu-san, who looks delighted by the attention.

Kaede asks his nana to put him down and for the first time goes to join the noisy crowd of kids to dance an off-tempo, quick waltz with his sister, that becomes a sort of ring-around-the-rosie when Suga, Tanaka and Noya all join.

“Under the sea!”

“UNDER THE SEA!”

“Under the sea!”

“UNDER THE SEA!”

“When the sardine begin the beguine it’s music to me!”

“What’s a beguine?” Daichi hears Hiroki-kun ask his mother and that just makes him laugh harder.

“What do they got, a lot of sand! We got a hot crustacean band!”

Everybody is yelling now.

Suga takes Kaede’s hand and starts to dance alone with him. “Each little clam here, know how to jam here…”

“I’m a clam!” Kaede agrees easily.

“Under the sea!”

Nobu-san starts another train and both grown-ups and kids join.

Suga keeps singing and suddenly the last verses come around and he’s right here, standing in front of Daichi, cheeks pink from joy and eyes shining.

“Each little snail here, know how to wail here…” he sings right to Daichi, a teasing smirk on his lips and he even goes so far as to point at Daichi at the word ‘snail’.

“So that’s how it is?” Daichi talks over him and when Suga gives him no answer but an amused snort Daichi takes his hand in his and tugs, softly, so Suga is standing even closer and makes him do a spin, then two, then three.

Suga is laughing too hard now to keep singing but nobody even notices. The song ends with fifty voices screaming in unison “Yeah we are in luck here, down in the muck here, under the sea!”

The last notes fade out and the kids are breathless with laughter, the adults are panting noisily like they just ran a marathon and Suga is all red in the face and giggling, mic forgotten in one hand while the other is still joined to Daichi’s.

“That was a great performance,” Daichi manages to whisper among the chaos and Suga looks up at him and winks.

“Of course it was.”

“Suga-san, again!” Ayame’s voice breaks through, followed by those of the other kids, yes, including Kaede’s, but Suga just smiles at them all and apologizes.

“I have no voice left,” he says and sure enough, he does sound a little rough.

Nobody wants to follow Suga’s performance, it’s pretty clear they are all too tired to, so he proposes they all get ready for the cake and his words are welcomed by one last applause. He takes a step toward the kitchen and only then he and Daichi fully register they are pretty much holding hands in public.

They both pull away fast.

 Daichi moves his hand in the air – up and down, up and down - as though he just got burned.

“I’m sorry…”

“No, it’s fine. It’s fine.”

With one last, indecipherable look at him Suga walks away, hand clenched in a fist by his side. So tight it’s turning white.

 

The table is moved to the centre of the room, facing the window, and Tanaka and Nishinoya, enlisted by Suga, take the plastic cups and plates and forks to the living room, along with the few remaining bottles of water, lemonade, and coke.

In the meantime Daichi and Suga are still in the kitchen, arguing on who should be the one to take out the cake.

“Come on Suga, you made the entire thing all by yourself!”

“Yes but you are Ayame’s father so really it should be you!”

“But you made them!”

“Um, boys?” Daichi’s mom appears behind them, making them both start. She opens the fridge and points at something inside. “There’s another cake here.”

Suga slaps his forehead so hard it echoes on every wall. “I’d completely forgotten about that!”

And then he’s got that no-nonsense look in his eyes again. “Ok, alright. Daichi-san, you will take the main cake with the candles, don’t argue with me!” he adds as soon as Daichi makes to speak, “and i’ll take the extra one.”

“Now let’s go. Go!”

He makes a shooing motion toward Daichi. _A shooing motion._

“Suga, do you remember this morning, when we talked about how bossy you can be?”

“Yes?”

“Well, you’re doing it again!”

Suga carefully places the cake in Daichi’s hands and smiles a terrifying smile. “I will return to my usual, lovable self as soon as you. Stop. Shilly-shallying!”

Daichi’s mother snorts and at her son’s glare she just shrugs and mimicks the shooing motion Suga did ten seconds ago.

Daichi has just, barely, stepped outside the kitchen that he hears his mother tell Suga “I never thought i’d see the day my Dai-chan would be so thoroughly put in his place. Bravo, dear!”

“Thank you, Sawamura-san!”

He is almost tempted to get back there and argue some more but there are a hundred eyes on him right now and it would hardly be appropriate for him to make them wait even longer.

He carefully puts the cake at the centre of the table, right in front of Ayame, and leans down to press a kiss in her hair. “Happy birthday, baby,” he murmurs and suddenly he feel tears gather at the corners of his eyes.

He really thought that maybe this year he would be able _not_ to cry, but of course here it is. It’s already happening and he’s not even alone in his room yet, damn it.

The other cake arrives and Suga hurries to close the curtains. Yurika lights up the candles with practiced skill and is the first to start singing. “Happy birthday to you!”

Everybody joins her. “Happy birthday to you!”

“Happy birthday, dear Ayame. Happy birthday to you!”

Ayame blows out all the candles on her first try and Daichi realizes he didn’t take any pictures. He’s patting his pockets, looking around the room for his phone, but then an elbow nudges his side gently.

Suga smiles at him, Daichi’s phone in hand. “I got you, Daichi-san. Now go!” and gestures for Daichi to join Yurika and Kaede by Ayame’s side.

Daichi doesn’t need to be told twice.

“Now everybody smile their best smile!”

Suga takes picture after picture of them, then some more after Daichi’s mother joins, but when Ayame asks him to get in there too he shakes his head and tells her with a crooked grin “Later, little cabbage. Family pictures first.”

Daichi is sure he’s the only one who notices the veil of sadness in his eyes.

 

“This one is from Hiroki-kun!”

Suga passes another present to Ayame and smiles gently at Hiroki, who is now blushing a bright red.

Ayame shakes the package a little to try to guess what it is, “A book, maybe?” then she uncerimoniously rips the paper. It’s a book indeed and as soon as she reads the title ‘The Great Aces of History’ she squeals loudly and runs to hug Hiroki.

At her gesture the boy looks about ready to faint and while Suga and Yurika both chuckle at the sight Daichi stores this information in his analytical lawyer brain and promises himself to keep a close eye on this Hiroki fellow from today on. Ayame is way too young to have boys buzzing around her.

“Y-you said you want to be the ace of your team one day and i saw this and i thought…” he stammers in Ayame’s shoulder.

“I love it i love it i love it!”

Yurika got her a pair of beautiful, colored straw shoes she bought in Africa and Ayame goes to hug her too and immediately puts them on in place of the slippers she always wears inside the house.

“One day i promise we’ll go together,” Yurika says and tucks a lock of Ayame’s hair under her ear.

Ayame takes it in hers and squeezes lightly. “I can’t wait, mom!”

There are about half a dozen dresses arranged carefully on the couch, a box full of hair ties and hair products, a crochet purse, a colorful school bag, a couple of shirts – one with a sketched lolly-pop on the front, the other with chibi unicorns everywhere – a shrimp plushie Suga has been staring at with envy in his eyes, and so much else Daichi has no idea where they are going to put.

There are only two packages left now and Daichi immediately recognizes the orange and black crow fantasy of them. He and Suga exchange a look.

Of course Ayame immediately goes for the smaller one and after reading it’s from Suga she’s extremely careful not to rip the paper.

She smiles brilliantly at the knee pads – she’s been asking Daichi to buy her new ones for months because her old ones hardly fit her anymore. Then she slowly unwraps a smaller package and gingerly drags her fingers over the soft fabric of her wrist bands, one black, the other a pastel orange.

Kaede, who’s been sitting close to his sister to get a better look at the presents, nudges her in the side and asks “What’s that on the inside?”

Daichi frowns and looks at Suga, who shrugs his shoulders and continues to wring his fingers in nerves.

Ayame turns the wristbands inside out and draws in a sharp breath. Inside the black one there’s a stunning embroidery of a white iris, so beautifully detailed it leaves Daichi speechless. Inside the orange one a single black feather and a phrase Daichi remembers hearing a thousand times, in that gym where time seemed to stop and he’d spent some of the happiest years of his life.

Take to the skies.

The tips on Suga’s fingers have turned a startling red for how hard he’s gripping them. With an uncertain voice he says “I know it’s not much, if…if you want to exchange it for something else then it’s f-”

Ayame stands up, slowly, and makes her way to him. Once they are standing face to face she gestures for him to lean down and throws her arms around his neck.

From so close only Daichi can hear the ‘thank you’ she whispers in Suga’s ear and her even softer “I’m so happy you’re here.”

Suga holds her close and kisses her swiftly on the temple, then they break apart with an embarrassed chuckle and he squeezes her shoulders. “Now go open your father’s present.”

She nods and they both dab at the corners of their eyes in a way that tries to be subtle but is painfully obvious to everyone in the room. Daichi feels a stab of fondness hit him, only to get caught in the spaces between his ribs. He rubs at it but it only digs in, deeper.

Kaede is the one who hands his sister the last present, with a little difficulty considering the size of it, and again she’s very careful unwrapping it.

She looks inside the box and takes the professional volleyball in her hands with utmost reverence.

“Turn it around a little, Aya!” Kaede whispers and she does as she’s told. Her eyes fall on the signature there and she almost drops the ball in shock.

“You…you had Bokuto Koutaro sign this?” she sounds out of breath and at Daichi’s smug nod she screeches.

“Oh my God, daddy!” she hugs his middle so hard he’s afraid it might leave bruises.

“There’s something else there too, baby…”

She lets him go at once and looks better inside the box. With nervous fingers she raises the T-shirt to get a better look at it and at the sight of the underlined number 1 with SAWAMURA written in huge, block white letters she bites her lip, hard.

“It’s just like my jersey when i went to Karasuno,” Daichi explains, “hopefully you’ll think being the captain is just as cool as being the ace…”

“It’s got to be if you were!” she tells him with a smile and runs to hug him again. “Thank you, daddy,” she whispers against his chest and all he can do is nod in acknowledgment because he knows that if he tries to open his mouth now he’ll start bawling in front of everyone.

 

The guests leave as the sky is beginning to darken.

Yurika and Daichi stand by the door to say goodbye and Suga is asked to give his e-mail address to no less than five people who are interested in this or in that recipe.

“Let it be only about recipes, though,” Daichi declares as loud as he can without having to scream, “because i have no intention of giving Suga up to any of you…”

Nobu-san throws an almost challenging look his way but as soon as Daichi returns it he averts his gaze with an awkward cough.

Still he lingers as he shakes Suga’s hand.

_The gall of this man…_

Daichi pointedly clears his throat and once the guy is finally out of his house, last of the guests, he closes the door with maybe a little too much force than necessary.

“Woah, that guy was a total lecher!” Nishinoya booms from the opposite side of the room, clearly having noticed the same thing Daichi had.

Yurika and Suga blink at him, then at Daichi who is nodding along. “What are you two talking about?”

“Oh come on, Suga-chan, don’t tell me you didn’t notice the way that guy kept staring at you!”

Suga looks as though he just fell from the clouds. “Um, no?”

Daichi snorts and crosses his arms over his chest. “You really are oblivious, aren’t you? If Nobu-san’s eyes had hands you would have been walking around naked the entire afternoon!”

Tanaka drops the side of the couch he’s helping Noya move with a loud thud.

_Looks like it’s not only Nobu-san i need to worry about._

“W-well but who cares? I mean it’s not like i’m going to see the guy again after tonight!”

Suga’s cheeks have turned a very bright red. “Besides, he’s hardly my type…” his last words are but a whisper but Nishinoya hears them anyway. Latches on to them.

“And while we are on that subject, who’s your type Suga-chan?”

Suga blanches so fast at the question Daichi instinctively moves in closer for fear he might be about to faint. There’s something almost akin to terror in his expression.

“We are not on that subject, Noya-san, leave him alone!” Tanaka hisses at him and pushes the couch toward him till Noya almost topples over on it. “I’m sorry, Suga-san…”

“No it’s…it’s fine,” Suga gives him a weak smile, then his face lights up again and with his newfound old cheek he tells Noya “I like men who can look me in the eyes without having to strain their necks!”

Daichi has to bite onto his fist to stop himself from laughing but Tanaka has no such qualms. He throws his head back and cackles, loud and a little obnoxious, then gives Suga an admiring look. “That was an awesome burn!”

“Thank you!” Suga chirps, then walks across the room to run upstairs.

Daichi watches as both Tanaka and Nishinoya follow the slow swinging of his hips and just for a second – just for a second, he swears – he does the same.

Of course Suga picks that exact moment to turn toward them and ask with an innocent, oblivious smile “Can any of you help me take down the garlands?”

In chorus Daichi, Tanaka and Nishinoya all say “I will!”

 

In the end it takes Tanaka and Daichi both to hold the ladder still, and Nishinoya is left rearranging furniture with Yurika. This doesn’t sit well with him, if the resentful looks he throws alternatively Daichi and Tanaka’s way is any indication.

Suga climbs swiftly on the ladder but when he hears it squeak suspiciously he looks down at Daichi and tells him, “You are going to buy a new ladder as soon as you can.”

“Is that an order, Suga?”

“It absolutely is, Daichi-san.”

Daichi leans on the side of the ladder and raises an eyebrow at him. “Were you always this disrespectful toward all your previous employers?”

Suga mirrors both his expression and his pose. “No, the honor is all yours!”

He turns a little to better take the garland down and suddenly all replies fly away from Daichi’s brain. His mouth opens and closes around words he can no longer recall.

Turning his back to Daichi, Suga has unconsciously made sure Daichi has a – truly marvelous – sight of his behind. In very tight blue jeans.

Daichi attempts to clear his throat but it feels so dry it scratches like sandpaper. He tries to avert his eyes but somehow, for some reason they keep falling on the treat before him, marvelously perky and perfectly round. After all, he’s still only a man…

“Daichi-san?”

It’s perfectly normal, wanting to appreciate nice things. Actually, it’s more than normal, it should be a duty, to be grateful for such works of art-

“Daichi-san!”

A garland falls right on Daichi’s head and he starts, making the ladder sway with his movement. Suga yelps and his foot slips off one of the steps. Daichi and Tanaka reach out to grab at his waist and he puts a trembling hand on Daichi’s shoulder. He gets down the ladder slowly, very slowly, and sits on the armrest of the couch with a shaky sigh.

“Shit, Suga, i’m so sorry…” Daichi tries to say but Suga shakes his head and throws the garland still around Daichi’s shoulders in the box.

“It’s alright, i just lost ten years of my life but it’s alright.”

Yurika appears by Suga’s side and hands him a glass of water that he takes with a grateful nod. Then she fixes Daichi with a piercing glare and asks him to help her get ‘something’ from the storage closet upstairs.

He follows her up the stairs and down the hallway with a budding sense of dread and even lets her push him inside the narrow closet. She closes the door behind them and its click is like a gunshot in the stale air.

“What are you doing?” she asks as soon as it has stopped echoing around them.

Daichi could pretend he has absolutely no clue what she’s talking about but there’s absolutely no point in prolonging this discussion. It’s the last thing he wants.

So he sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose guiltily. “It was an accident, my eyes just sort of…”

“Fell on his ass?”

He winces at the venom in her voice but doesn’t avoid her gaze. “Yes, alright? It happens.”

“It _happens_?”

“Not, um, not in that sense. But yes, of course it happens. What, you mean to tell me you’ve never looked at a handsome man passing you by on the street? You’ve never stared a little too long at a pair of muscled arms?”

She rolls her eyes and stiffly leans on the shelf behind her. “Of course i have,” she spits it in Daichi’s face, “but none of those men were my nanny!”

“For crying out loud, Yurika! I just said it was an accident. An accident. It’s not like i make an habit of it!”

“No? So you didn’t hire him just because he’s attractive?”

Her voice is getting shrill with impatience and at the suspicious look she’s giving him anger starts to boil, acid in his chest.

“What did you just say to me?”

“Well, what else am i supposed to think?”

Daichi laughs, but it’s far from amused. In fact he’s just about ready to kick something. Preferably that stupid, shitty ladder. “What you’re supposed to think,” he growls, “is that i love our children and would never pick anyone who i didn’t think was more than qualified to take care of them. That’s what you’re supposed to think!”

She makes to reply but Daichi doesn’t let. He’s had it up here, since she first arrived he should have told her off. “If you had bothered to get to know Suga, if you had tried to talk to him, instead of just giving him the cold shoulder and staring at him with that calculating, skeptic look on your face you would know by now that he’s perfect for the job. Perfect.”

“He’s been nothing short of wonderful to the kids and they’ve already grown so attached to him. I know that at the very least you noticed _this_ , or do you think our children too are only fond of him because of his pretty face?”

Yurika shakes her head, slowly, and her hair falls to frame her face, soft on her shoulders. Without thinking Daichi pushes it away, behind her ears and down her back, like he always used to do when they first got together.

“They seem to really like him…” she whispers to him and her face is crossed with lines, a map of her sorrow.

“That’s because they do but, Yurika, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

“Of course.”

She finally looks away from him and in the poor, yellow light he catches the telling brightness of her eyes.

“Yurika?”

“I bet they didn’t even miss me. Once he came along…”

_So that’s what this is about…_

Daichi takes a step toward her and in the cramped space they are trapped in that step is enough to bring them close enough to touch. So he does, he puts his hands on her shoulders and squeezes once, then twice, and again until she stops avoiding his gaze.

“Of course they missed you, before Suga came along and after. You’re their mother!”

“The mother who left them!”

“Only for three months and only because of work!”

“Oh, that makes it all ok then.”

Neither of them says anything for a while but Yurika moves closer to him too, rests her head on Daichi’s chest and clings onto the fabric of his shirt. She’s trembling, if only just lightly.

Daichi passes his arms around her waist and holds her.

Just because they fell out of love as soon as the reality of marriage, the reality of each other smacked them in the face doesn’t mean Daichi has stopped caring. Doesn’t mean he enjoys seeing her so hurt, so unsure of her place in their children’s world.

“They love you, Yurika.”

“I know.”

“Suga is not here to replace you.”

A sniff. “I know that too.”

“Good.”

Their children’s laughter reaches their ears, through the solid walls around them, all the way from the garden where they ran to earlier to show Nana the flowers Suga-san had picked.

“Push me harder, uncle Ryuu!”

Clearly the new swings sprouting from the ground distracted them.

Yurika clears her throat and passes a hands over her eyes. For respect to her, because Daichi knows how much she hates being seen crying, he looks away, to the ceiling, to the single lightbulb illuminating the space, to the moth flying around its faded brightness.

“We better get out of here,” Yurika says and her voice finally sounds steady, like her own again, “God knows what we could find if we left Tanaka and Nishinoya alone with the kids for too long.”

Daichi smiles. “Oh, i wouldn’t worry too much about it as long as Suga is with them. He has a way of keeping people in line, a weird way to be honest but it sure is effective…”

He opens the door but Yurika’s hand on his elbow stops him from walking out. When he turns around her expression has gone somber again. “I know we already went through this so don’t get mad but i need to tell you, outright, what a stupid idea it would be to get involved with him.”

“Especially if he’s as good with the kids as you say.”

Whatever answer Daichi might be considering giving is cut short before he can speak it, by his mother’s voice calling his name.

“Dai! Where did you go off to?”

He and Yurika immediately step out of the closet and at the mutinous look his mother throws their way Daichi puts his palms up and hurries to clarify “We were just talking.”

She nods but still her features don’t soften. “Alright then. Suga-kun is going, i thought you might at least want to say goodbye and, most importantly, _thank_ him for all the work he’s done today.”

She disappears under the stairs and as her words register Daichi is quick to follow.

 

Ayame clings onto Suga’s neck for a solid five minutes, thanking him over and over again till her voice has gone hoarse.

“It was my pleasure,” is all Suga says. All he can say.

Kaede takes his hand in his and squeezes it briefly and Suga beams at him as though he’s feeling all the happiness the world has to offer. Daichi’s mother pulls him into one of her usual bear hugs and, under everyone’s shocked gaze, cups his face in her hands an presses a kiss on his forehead.

“Thank you,” she tells him and it’s clear she means for more than just the party but Daichi cannot find the reason behind the fondness of her tone. Except that, well, it’s really impossible not to like Suga.

Tanaka and Noya hug him too, or better they sandwich him between their bodies, and Yurika bows formally at him, to which he does the same.

Then it’s Daichi’s turn and as usual he doesn’t know what to say. There’s just so much, so many things he wants to tell him, he doesn’t even know where to begin. “Thank you,” is what he manages in the end.

Suga smiles, eyes crinkling in the corners. “Bye, Daichi-san.”

“See you, Suga.”

He leaves and Daichi’s shoulders drop.

“Such a lovely boy,” he hears his mother say and he nods, not really there.

“Oh, before i forget, your father called, Dai,” she adds and at that Daichi turns to face her.

“What did he say?”

“He was calling from the airport, said he managed to catch a last-minute flight so he should be here in about an hour.”

“Grandpa is coming?” Ayame interjects, her lips already curved in a smile.

“Yes, dear, grandpa is coming.”

“Woohoo!” she and Kaede high-five and start doing a little tarantella of celebration. Then Kaede stops, eyes fixed somewhere behind Daichi’s back.

“Isn’t that Suga-san’s?” he asks and Daichi turns around to see the beanie Suga was wearing this morning resting limply on the couch.

“Oh Daichi, you really should bring it to him. If you run i’m sure you can catch up to him,” his mother tells him and her tone is gentle but in her look there’s a clear order. _Do as i say._

“What’s the hurry? He can get it on Monday…” Yurika says, with a careless shrug of her shoulders.

Daichi pointedly ignores her, ignores the logic of her statement, takes the beanie in his hand and walks out the door. He starts running as soon as he’s made it past the gate.

_After all_ , he tells himself to explain his foolishness, _he might want to wear it during the week-end, it might be an important hat to him. With a story behind._

He knows he’s reaching.

Still he keeps running. Avoids passersby, jumps over a small dog, causing the little fellow and its owner to bark at him. He almost trips on a garbage can too.

He stops for breath only once the sign of the station is before his eyes and then he realizes that, stupid him, Suga is probably already on that bloody train. And why does it matter so much that he is, it’s only a bloody hat Daichi needs to give him.

He walks, still toward the station but with no real hope to find Suga waiting for him – for the train, the _train_ – and yet close to the stairs that lead to the platforms a solid body collides with him, causing them both to fall.

“D-Daichi-san?” A soft voice asks, a soft weight presses him down on the asphalt.

Daichi blinks at the face looking down on him and sure enough. Suga.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Suga tells him and his warm breath caresses Daichi’s cheeks, his lips.

Daichi clears his throat, loud.

“Your hat,” he mutters back and hands the beanie to Suga, or at least tries, considering his hands, his arms, his whole body is being squashed and flattened by Suga’s curves.

Their fingers brush against each other. Daichi hears Suga catch in a breath. Or maybe that was him.

“My hat, yes,” Suga nods and shoves it on his head, a little crooked. “That’s, um, that’s what i was coming back for…”

They are still lying on the ground, Daichi realizes, and people have started to stare.

Correction, _Daichi_ is lying on the ground, Suga is just half sitting on his lap. The people part doesn’t need revision though, they really are staring.

“Suga…”

“Oh, shoot, i’m sorry!”

Suga gets up, so fast and clumsy he almost falls back on his ass again but as he reaches out to take Daichi’s hand and help him up his grip is steady, although maybe a little clammy. Not that Daichi minds.

“Thanks…”

“No, um, it’s fine…”

Standing face to face is almost more unsettling. The look Suga is giving him is unsettling. Wide-eyed and nervous, earnest. As though he’s waiting for something. For Daichi to do something. What that something is though, Daichi has no idea.

His knees have gotten a little jittery.

Under the cold lights of the station the gold in Suga’s eyes is nearly blinding, overshadows the warmth of copper with its radiance.

Daichi takes a step back, unsteady, so they won’t be standing quite so close and scratches the back of his neck. “Well, there you go…”

“Yeah…”

From the speakers comes the metallic voice announcing the arrival of the train on platform 2.

“It’s my train,” Suga tells him but still he makes no move to leave.

Daichi nods and under that precious stare, with Yurika’s words still playing in his head, he says the one thing he doesn’t mean. “You should go then.”

Suga’s eyes drop on the floor, at once, and for a moment Daichi’s fingers itch to lift his chin up, the way he’d done just a few hours ago in the kitchen. He doesn’t.

“You’re right, of course you’re right. Goodbye, Daichi-san.”

And with that Suga leaves.

_How stupid it would be…_

Daichi does too, without waiting for Suga’s train to start. He doesn’t turn around, to make sure Suga made it inside. He doesn’t see Suga looking behind his shoulder, looking for him.

He doesn’t see. After all, he only came to return his hat.

How stupid.


	10. Deep in these young unfamiliar eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He messed up.

“You can’t just-”

“Please, Daichi. I really don’t think i’m asking for too much!”

“Yes, you are. Yurika…”

“No, alright? No. I spent three months without them, it’s only fair I-”

“There’s nothing fair about this, not if you are not even willing to let me have a say in this!”

“You’ve had a say in everything lately. Everything!”

“It’s not my fault the judge-”

“No it isn’t, but I still have a right to see my children!”

“And I would never keep you from seeing them but this is bullshit!”

“You are going too far  – yes, yes I’m coming – listen I need to go.”

“How convenient!”

“I have a fucking job, Daichi!”

“What a coincidence, so do I and yet you had no qualms calling me in the middle of it. You know what? Go, do whatever the hell it is that you need to do but don’t think this conversation is in any way over.”

Daichi hangs up on her without waiting for a reply. The receiver almost cracks in his hand he’s gripping it so tight.

 

*

 

 

Daichi is kissing him.

His arms around Suga, he’s holding him close and he’s kissing him. At the train station, by the platform, his hat forgotten on the ground, Suga cards his fingers through Daichi’s hair and kisses back.

Kisses till his lips are rough and aching and bleeding, kisses him until his lungs burn, the oxygen in the air around them has all combusted.

The platform starts spinning under their feet and if Suga were to open his eyes he’d know he’s not at the station anymore. But surrounded by gazeless horses and wooden carriages, his eyes stay stubbornly closed. He opens his mouth to deepen the kiss and licks into Daichi’s mouth.

Daichi hugs him to his chest and there’s no more distance between them now. Calloused fingers slither beneath Suga’s clothes to caress the skin of his waist, trace the dimples on his lower back, then travel lower…

Suga moans in Daichi’s mouth and with three sharp tugs at the fabric he rips the shirt off, away from Daichi’s body. His hands fall to Daichi’s chest and his nails scratch at firm muscles, fingers curl at the tickling of coarse dark hair.

He moves away from Daichi’s lips with a sigh and kisses every inch of the body beneath his palms, stopping only when his chin touches the metal of a belt.

He undoes it. He unbuttons the jeans with swift, careless movements and…

“Kou-chan!”

Suga’s eyes fall open, his heart a hammer in his chest, cracking his ribs to create a path to break free.

_What the fuck…_

Edward Elric on the wall, piles and piles of books rising from the floor, his desk, covered with more books and pictures of his family. The old chair he throws his clothes on before going to bed, his pastel pink apron with birds and butterflies carefully hanging from a nail next to his closet.

Alright.

_Alright._

Onyx jumps on the bed to lick Suga’s cheek – probably an apology for spending the night with Taka instead of him – and he passes a hand through his hair. There are beads of sweat on his forehead.

“Kou-chan, this is your last warning. If I catch that beast napping on my clothes one more time I swear I’ll –”

Suga sits up, unsteady on his forearms, and kicks the bedsheets away with so much force they fall to the ground at his feet. Onyx follows the movement with her eyes and in one leap she’s there, patting the sheets down and jumping at every wrinkle she sees.

“It’s so not fair to me. You remember I wasn’t thrilled about having a cat in the house, but still I _allowed_ it because it made you and Tacchan happy.”

It’s the third time this week, _the_ _third_ _time_ , that he dreams about…about this.

Daichi-san kissing him, on that bloody platform. As if. As if Daichi-san would ever…

_You should go then._

That’s what Daichi-san wanted him to do. Get his hat and leave. Not in a bad way, not in a ‘go away’ way, but just…he was leaving, he forgot his hat, and Daichi-san ran a marathon to give it to him. Of course, once he had his hat back what else was he supposed to do if not leave?

Besides, if Daichi-san hadn’t said anything and let him keep doing what he was doing, which was standing there like an idiot, he probably – no, surely – he would have lost the train.

“But now, I basically spend all my bloody money on getting my clothes cleaned after your cat has made a nest in them and honestly I’m done, I’ve had enough!”

But in that moment…with Daichi-san standing in front of him, still a little out of breath from his run, a tear of sweat running down his cheek, all Suga had wanted to do was…well, it was kiss him.

Take his hat, cup the back of Daichi-san’s neck and see for himself if his lips are softer than they look, or if they would scratch his own, insistent and chapped, and leave him breathless.

“Aren’t you going to say anything, Kou-chan?”

These…these are not things he should be thinking about. This is all wrong. It’s wrong and messed up and inappropriate and he can’t…fuck, he can’t do this.

He can’t keep doing this…

“Kou-chan?”

Suga hides his face in his hands, and his fingers press so hard on his eyes white dots start to appear behind his closed eyelids.

He can’t do this. He needs…he needs to get a grip on himself, immediately, before he messes up this thing, this tentative friendship he and Daichi-san are building. Before he messes up his relationship with the kids.

Oh God, the kids.

“Koushi?”

He can’t lose this job, he can’t…he can’t lose his kids over this thing he doesn’t even have a name for.

The bed springs squeak and a heavy weight settles next to Suga, making the mattress dip so  Suga is forced to lean on a toned arm.

“Koushi, is everything alright?”

The irritation in Tooru’s voice has disappeared. Suga rests his forehead on his shoulder and shakes his head once, slowly.

“I promise I won’t talk bad about your…furry…thing anymore.”

Despite himself, Suga can’t help a weak smile. “It’s not that.”

“Thought so…”

Tooru’s arm comes around his shoulders and squeezes them gently.”So what’s wrong?”

Laughter, a little hysterical. “Me. I’m wrong, Tooru.”

“I’m done all wrong.”

His voice cracks and he tucks his face in Tooru’s neck. Onyx looks up from the sheets, her linen playground, and climbs up the bed again to sit on Suga’s lap, her wide, golden eyes fixed on his face.

 

*

 

He lives the whole morning on edge.

His leg keeps bouncing up and down at breakfast and then again while he’s sitting at his desk trying to translate Rousseau. On and off again his nerves build up and he stands to take brief walks around the house. Simmering under layers of skin they become energy, they become hurry and when it’s finally time to go, pick Kaede up from kindergarten he treads the streets of Tokyo like an animal finally let out of his cage.

People even move aside to make him pass, something that’s never happened to him. He always has to shoulder people through crowds and guys have the nasty habit of ‘accidentally’ bumping into him to get a better look at his face or whatever it is they are trying to do.

Well not today.

He almost walks past the school in his haste, it’s only the bell timely going off that clues him in and he hurries back and inside the building feeling like the biggest of fools. He greets Kaede with a smile and like every day he takes his schoolbag and throws it over his shoulders. Kaede moves to walk by his side and through the crowded streets of Shibuya they go, breaths a little heavy from the sticky heat.

“Are you alright, Suga-san?” Kaede asks all of a sudden, making Suga start.

Kaede doesn’t like talking in front of people he doesn’t know, even if they are simple passersby. He never spoke to Suga so carelessly, in the middle of a busy street.

Suga must really be hiding _well_ this strange restlessness of his then…

He clears his throat and nods at Kaede, in the most breezy way possible. “Yes, of course.”

“Now, um, come along. I want to make onigiri when we get home and finish them before it’s time to pick up Ayame.”

They reach the wide crossroad and Suga gestures for Kaede to grab the strap of his bag, like he does every day, but the moment the light turns green Kaede closes his small fist around Suga’s hand instead.

He doesn’t let go once they reach the sidewalk. He doesn’t let go on the sunny corner streets that converge to the small playground a few meters away from the house or down their road, where they meet their across-the-street neighbor walking his dog.

Suga follows the pace of Kaede’s small steps and the itch in his muscles stops. Slowly it drains away from him, until he’s light again and his body is his own. He looks down at the ruffled head almost resting on his side, just like he’d done the other day at the party, and the same question as then comes to him, emerges from a place deep inside his chest.

How does this happen? How can a person this small give off this much peace?

Give _him_ this much peace.

And a thought: it was never like this, with the other kids he babysat.

It’s only inside the house that Kaede lets him go, with a last fleeting squeeze, and kneels down to unlace his shoes with his eyes fixed on the floor. Suga does the same – what else can he do? – and his hand feels terribly cold. It takes him three tries to get the first shoe off.

They manage to make onigiri for snack, working in the quiet Suga has grown so fond of, and from time to time Kaede will look up at him and simply smile, in that way that makes his cheeks puff up and Suga itch to shower him with kisses.

“Aya was happy for the party,” he says while he’s shaping another onigiri with surprisingly deft fingers.

Suga stops fixing the sauce and clinks the spoon on the edge of the bowl to get the last drops to fall. He’s smiling too, now. “She was?”

“Yeah, she said it was the best ever.”

Together they arrange all the onigiri on a wide plate and catch the extra grains of rice that fell on the counter with their fingertips.

“I’m, I’m glad to hear that,” Suga says and munches on the grains he rescued. His heart is doing a funny thing in his chest right now, it’s a little worrying.

They put the plate in the fridge, to eat them once they get back from Ayame’s school but Suga can’t deny one – ok, two – to Kaede when he points at them with a pleading expression on his face.

“Aya is happier now, always,” Kaede adds as they are leaving the house again, “since you came.”

Suga almost drops his bag on his foot and looks down at Kaede with his heart in his throat. Kaede is smiling at him again, just an upturned curve of his mouth and his eyes crinkling at the corners.

Suga reaches out to him and Kaede takes his hand.

“Can I tell you a secret, Kaede-kun?” Suga’s voice is shaking.

A nod.

Suga clears his throat and his words come out sure, as sure as he is. “I’ve been much happier since I came here too.”

_A lot less sure of myself, of the easy comfort of the life I lead. But yes, much, much happier._

 

Once they arrive to Ayame’s school Nobu-san is already there, waiting outside the gate like he has for the past three days. He waves at Suga with a little too much enthusiasm for it to be appropriate and Suga plasters a smile on his face and gives him a quick nod as he walks by him.

Of course Nobu-san follows him inside the school grounds.

“Hello Sugawara-kun, it’s lovely to see you again!” then at Kaede’s dark look he adds “And you too, Kaede-kun…”

“Likewise, Nobu-san,” Suga says through gritted teeth as his chest fills with dread.

“What are you up to today?” Nobu-san asks, casually resting a hand on Suga’s shoulder.

“Just some gardening.”

That’s right. Keep it simple, concise. Don’t elaborate so the man won’t find any details to latch on and start a conversation that will last till the end of time.

“Oh, gardening! You know, my mother owns a beautiful mansion up in Hokkaido, completely immersed in green. People come from all parts of the island to look at her marvelous hydrangea…”

Suga nods and looks up at the giant clock disposed at the very top of the school building. Five minutes till 17:00.

“Pink hydrangea, blue hydrangea. But her absolute most spectacular is the white hydrangea, the entire stone pathway to her garden is surrounded by bushes of them, she cares for them as she would her own children…”

Four minutes now.

Nobu-san’s thumb has started to stroke the curve of his shoulder and Suga is about ready to bite it off and then spit it out.

“My garden is in pretty good conditions too,” Nobu-san is _still_ talking, “but I’ve heard you’re quite the expert. I could really use an expert’s hand-”

Alright, that’s quite enough.

Suga takes a step away from him, with the excuse of getting closer to Kaede now that a small crowd has started to form around them, and fixes him with cold gaze. “I’m no expert, Nobu-san. If that’s what you need then I’d be more than happy to give you the name of a lovely flower shop keeper who would gladly lend you her expertise.”

_God, i’m so sorry Mrs. Devaux._

Nobu-san’s hand falls limply along his side and with smug relief Suga notices a spark of wariness in the way the man is looking at him now. “That, um, that would be very kind of you…”

Then in a softer voice, so that Kaede won’t hear “And there’s no chance that you would consider, um,…I mean if you’re dissatisfied with what Sawamura is paying you-”

Irritation spreads from his tight-knotted stomach to reach all ends of his body and Suga is sure he’s flushing with it. He knows he’s trembling. “I’m very, very satisfied with that and happy where I am, thank you,” he might as well have spat that ‘thank you’ for the force with which he hissed it.

Nobu-san finally – _finally_ – leans away from him and the twist of his mouth is almost vicious. “Yeah, I bet you are,” he says after a moment of pause, and the implication in his tone is clear as day.

He waves at Kaede with a wide, strained smile on his face and leaves just as the bell rings and the first students have already started to run outside.

“What a poop,” Kaede mutters under his breath and Suga looks at him, shocked.

“Kaede!”

At least the kid has the decency to look contrite, a guilty blush spreading on his cheeks.

“I don’t know where you heard that word,” – _yeah,_ _right_ – “but I never want to hear you say it ever again, understood?”

Kaede nods and waves his sister over as he sees her appear among the crowd.

Suga smiles at Ayame too and she runs toward them, so fast the pencils and pens in her bag can be heard rattling. He takes her hand and slowly they make their way outside, home.

Near the gate Suga sees Nobu-san again, catches him staring with an almost resentful look on his face.

_What_ _a_ _poop_ _indeed_ , Suga thinks to himself, and passes right by him with his head held high.

 

Mrs. Devaux agreed to come by around 6 so in the hour they have left by themselves Suga had planned to do some tidying up of the garden, picking the leaves that fell everywhere during the night. Which of course turns, in the matter of five minutes, into a contest of who can reach higher on the swings.

In everybody’s defense, the moment that decides it is like a scene from a movie.

The soft spring breeze makes the leaves of the trees on the outside of the garden move and fall all around them, Ayame and Suga’s hair flies to caress their cheeks – and get into their eyes – and the sparkling new swings in the shade of the house move and squeak charmingly, lure the three of them with metal twinkling in the sun and the bright new leather of the seats.

Suga looks at Ayame, then at Kaede and simultaneously three rakes – a professional one and two made of plastic – land on the ground with a soft thud, forgotten. Suga is further away than the kids but his legs are much longer and in just eight long strides he’s there, sitting on one of the two seats and looking smugly at the kids glaring at him with matching pouts on their faces.

They are so cute.

Suga grins a toothy grin and starts swaying slowly, his running shoes skimming the black and brown ground with the soles.

“Suga-san!” Ayame yells at him, hands planted on her hips in a pose she shamelessly copied from him.

“What?” Suga asks, clueless, and pushes himself just a little higher.

“The swings are not for old people!” she tells him in a reproaching tone. Kaede nods in agreement and crosses his arms on his tiny chest, the severe frown on his face eerily alike to Daichi-san’s and entirely out of place on his baby face.

Suga stops his slow rise to the skies with the tip of his foot digging in the soil and smirks at them, challenge obvious in his eyes. “Alright, let’s say that if you manage to push me this up high-” he raises his hand till it rests a little above Ayame’s head “i will give up my seat!”

Kaede and Ayame share a look and nod resolutely at him. Before they can start, Suga throws a serious look behind his shoulders and tells them to step aside as soon as they see him swinging back toward them.

“Well, duh! We know how the swings work, Suga-san!”

The hair behind Suga’s neck stands up and with horrifying clarity Suga remembers – or better, he realizes – that Ayame is only a few of years away from puberty, from teenagehood.

_No wonder Daichi-san looked so morose at her birthday._

Two pair of hands settle on Suga’s back and push and Suga cheekily brushes the ground with his foot to stop his leap.

“Let’s try again, Dede!” Ayame says, probably louder than intended, in what Suga has come to think of as her volleyball captain voice.

“Don’t call me that,” Kaede tries to protest but it falls on dead ears.

“Now, Dede, push!”

They go on like this for a good five attempts and it’s Kaede in the end who notices Suga’s contracted, closed-off pose and trecherous foot.

“Suga-san you are a cheat!” he proclaims, almost as loud as his sister in his indignation and Suga jumps off the swing to face them.

With a quick nod he gestures to the now empty seat, then at the other, and places himself behind them to do some pushing of his own. “That was for calling me ‘old’ you cheeky young’uns!”

“I never said that, Suga-san, it was Aya!”

Suga gives Kaede’s swing a gentle push and watches him rush forward. “You nodded, though.”

Kaede keeps quiet but leans slightly on Suga’s hands on his next push and Suga makes sure to push a little harder.

Next to them Ayame is just a blur of blue and white, her hair wild in the azure sky as though they were a creature with its own will.

“Ayame, careful!” Suga calls out when he sees how fast she’s going but he has to take the chain of her swing to get her to slow down a little.

“Can’t you make me go that high too, Suga-san?” Kaede asks with a pleading look.

Suga would gladly take the world and hand it to him on a silver platter, for that look alone or for nothing at all, but this time he has to shake his head and speak a firm no.

“It’s dangerous, Kaede-kun,” he explains when Kaede looks down, dejected, “you could fall and hurt yourself…”

Kaede mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like ‘but Aya does it’ and Suga chooses not to reply. He just pushes Kaede a little – a very little – harder and yells every two minutes at Ayame to slow down.

She only does at his tenth reproach, her foot planted so firm on the ground so suddenly it raises a small cloud of dust. There’s a gleeful, truly worrying, look in her eyes and instinctively Suga’s body tenses.

He’s so not going to like the words that will come out of her mouth next.

“Catch me, Suga-san!”

And sure enough…

“Absolutely not!”

“Oh come on, daddy always does it!”

_Your daddy also has muscles that look carved into marble_ , is on the tip of Suga’s tongue but good sense stops him. Still, his unshared point stands.

Too bad Ayame is stubborn as a mule.

They spend a good ten minutes fighting but in the end Suga finds himself standing a few feet away from the swings and watching Ayame fly above his head with bated breath.

Ayame pushes herself higher and higher with the strength of her arms and her legs and three times she moves away, far away from Suga without letting go of the chain. Then, on her fourth try she beams at him and just as the swing is about to rise in the blue she jumps off, high, and Suga’s heart leaps in his chest.

_Oh, no no no._

Suga takes a step forward, then another, and closes his arms around her. The force with which they collide has her laughing and Suga stumbling and he’s so relieved nothing happened that he lets himself fall on the ground.

“See, you caught me!” Ayame says in the crook of his neck.

He nods.

“I caught you,” he repeats it, again and again, to her, in his on head. “I caught you.”

_For as long as you need, i’ll catch you._

“Me too, me too!” Kaede exclaims and Suga spends the next five minutes exercising and testing his reflexes - more so than he ever did when he still played volleyball – and worrying himself sick.

He has never been happier that his hair is already grey.

 

Thankfully – _thankfully_ – Mrs. Devaux shows up soon after, earlier than they’d agreed on, with a couple of potted roses that she says no garden should lack, and a bunch of catalogs and books on how to best take care of the plants they already have.

“You can keep them of course,” she tells Suga with a smile, clearly noticing the way he’s marveling at the beautiful hard covers and stunning pictures in each of them.

“Oh, no we couldn’t-”

“I insist, Koushi-kun, you and Sawamura-san are doing great things for my business!”

Before her kindness Suga can’t not accept and he hugs the books to his chest, promises to study them thoroughly in the next few weeks. Still a little, insistent voice in his head tells him that the simple gratitude of a businesswoman is not all there is behind these gifts. The rakes, the hat she brought for Suga and never asked back, closing the shop earlier just to help them with the garden.

The way she looks at Suga sometimes, as though she’s seeing a ghost from years past. Her warning that night, _be_ _careful_.

Suga can’t give these things a reason.

Then again, Suga looks at Mrs. Devaux profile, the relaxed line of her mouth, why should he try to. Not everything is for him to know.

Mrs. Devaux delicately takes his arm and they walk around the house to get in the backyard with careful steps.

“Where were you thinking of planting the roses, Mrs. Devaux?” he asks at last, stepping lightly over his rake.

“I’m not sure, maybe near the front gate?”

“Around the stone pathway that leads to the door?”

“Mmm…”

“Nice.”

“Oh and by the way, Koushi-kun…”

“Yes?”

“What was my rake doing, so carelessly thrown on the ground?”

_Shit._

Mrs. Devaux has them collecting the leaves quick and shakes her head at Suga whenever he meets her eyes, to let him know how disappointed she is that he would let garden care fall behind in favor of messing around on the swings.

“They are cool, though. Right, Mrs. Devaux?” Ayame asks, first to finish, all the leaves that had fallen in her section carefully piled in the bucket.

Mrs. Devaux smiles at her and gently pats Ayame on the head. “Very cool indeed. But it wasn’t there last time I came, right?”

They move again to the front of the house, the small space of green between the entrance gate and the front door and Ayame recounts her party with grand, expressive gestures, lists all the presents she got, leaving Suga’s and her father’s for last.

“Suga-san even made the cake!” she tells Mrs. Devaux, “it was delicious, with whipped cream and strawberries and Suga-san covered it with this layer of jello and you could see the pieces of strawberries inside. It was so pretty my friends all asked to take pictures of it before we ate it…”

Mrs. Devaux’s smile falters, just for a second, and her eyes turn to Suga again, who’s been busy inspecting the roses she brought. So careful he’s being with its roots that he misses that look, he misses the way her eyes brighten, uncertain.

He only hears the question.

“So you…I didn’t know you baked, Koushi-kun?”

Suga shrugs, distracted, and carefully clips a couple of yellow leaves. “It’s just a hobby, I usually do it when I’m stressed.”

“Yeah, that’s what I used to say all the time,” Mrs. Devaux says and even as distracted by the roses as he is Suga catches the brilliance of her smile, small and a litte timid.

He puts the shears down to listen.

“When I used to help my sister in the little bakery she had,” she continues, and as wistful as her expression has gotten there’s a new energy in her words, enthusiasm. “She was the one with the gift, in our family. Her sweets, especially her cookies, were the best in all Angers!”

Angers.

Where…where has he heard that name before?

“Did you learn by yourself, Koushi-kun?” she asks and it takes Suga a moment to comprehend her question, and that it’s directed to him.

He shakes his head to find his wits again. “My nana taught me some of it,” he says at last, “but mostly i picked it up from a, um, a friend of mine…”

And suddenly it’s like the lights went out to leave only shadows on Mrs. Devaux’s face.

“Your nana taught you. Of…of course.”

Her voice is barely strong enough to reach Suga’s ears and he starts at how strangled it sounds. “Mrs. Devaux, are you alright?”

“Here it is!” Ayame chirps, appearing seemingly out of nowhere to show Mrs. Devaux the pictures of the cake she’d taken with Suga’s phone. The phone that Suga had been sure was in his pocket…

Mrs. Devaux nods at Ayame and looks at every picture she shows her, but she is wearing her smile like she would a wool jumper in July. Uncomfortable, oppressive. The hand she has on Ayame’s shoulder is shaking.

“It’s very pretty, Ayame-chan,” she says and ‘oooh’s and ‘aaah’s opportunely at every new thing Ayame points at and describes.

Slowly her hands stop shaking so noticeably, till only a slight tremor possesses them, but Suga’s eyes don’t leave her. He drops the vase with tender pink roses on the side of the pathway, the one where the shade is already gifting some coolness, and silently brings one of the lawn chairs close to where they are all standing.

Suga doesn’t know Mrs. Devaux well enough to be sure of how she would react to him offering her a seat, for the effort she is putting in to make it look as though nothing has happened – _is_ happening – it’s possible she would take offense, or close into herself. Suga doesn’t want that, it’s important to him that this doesn’t follow.

Mrs. Devaux has been so kind to him, ever since they first met, he would hate to mess that up. In any way.

 

As expected Mrs. Devaux doesn’t deign the chair of a second look and when Ayame is done showing her pictures of the party she immediately goes to kneel down next to Suga, to start working on the roses.

“You have quite the talent for bakery, Koushi-kun,” she tells him with a soft nudge of her elbow, “i’m not surprised, you have good hands.”

Suga nods in thanks and takes the little shovel she passes him.

“He really does!” It’s Ayame who answers for him. “I knew because once, like weeks ago, he made these amazing cupcakes, do you remember, Dede?”

Kaede sits on the chair, curled on himself like a kitten, but nods energetically at his sister.

“They were so good! Daddy couldn’t stop smiling while he ate them, it was kind of weird actually…”

The soil Suga is moving slips down the edges of the shovel and he feels a warmth, a flare of heat start, spark low in his stomach. He doesn’t raise his eyes to risk meeting those of the children, or worse, Mrs. Devaux’s but still his stupid mouth runs, ahead of his brain.

“He, um, he was smiling?” he asks and at once he wants to hit himself with the shovel, hide his face in the ground like a misplaced, lost ostrich.

Ayame nods and pinches her brother in the side until he gruffly makes space on the chair so she can sit too. “Yeah, he kept saying they were delicious and how nice of you it had been to make them, blah blah blah. It was good he did though, i snatched more while he talked.”

He was smiling. Daichi-san was smiling because of his cupcakes, so basically Daichi-san was smiling because of him.

It’s so not a big deal, it’s so not a good enough reason to blush.

Suga drags a hand across his face and with the excuse of wiping the sweat off his forehead he presses the inside of his wrist hard against his cheeks. They are burning up, of course they are, because he’s a pathetic loser.

“That’s nice, that he, that you all liked them…” he babbles, eyes still stubornly fixed on the delicate blossoms before him. He’s sure he must be the same shade as them by now.

“I told you you’re amazing, Suga-san,” Ayame says with simplicity, distractedly, now immersed in the catalog of flowering plants Mrs. Devaux had brought for them.

Suga digs into the ground, to create a spot for the roses or maybe to bury himself in, he’s not sure yet.

Mrs. Devaux’s hand appears in his line of sight, her gardening glove off, to cover Suga’s. Squeezes it gently, the slow drag of her thumb across his knuckles soothing.

It tugs at Suga’s brain, like the name of that town had, this gesture that is as comforting as it is familiar, like a deja vù, and he swallows down his embarrassment at last to finally meet her eyes.

He doesn’t find judgement in them. Good because he’s already judging himself harder, more severely than anyone else could, but he also finds knowledge and that scares him. He finds comprehension and he finds sympathy because she understands, she recognizes what he’s feeling much better than he can, much more than he cares to.

Suga looks at Mrs. Devaux and knows that, sooner or later, he’s going to have to accept his heart.

 

Daichi-san comes and brings the clouds with him.

Suga hears his steps, heavy and brisk around the gate, and it only takes one look at the tight line of his lips, the deep crease between his brows to understand something happened. And this time it’s going to take a lot more than cupcakes to make it right again.

“Good evening, Mrs. Devaux,” Daichi-san says, gracious as usual, although the bow he gives her is more of a nod. His back stays as straight as a rod.

The kids run to him, like they do every day, and his expression drops, turns both softer and strangely closed off and Suga finds himself standing, the roses at his feet, waiting.

“I’ve missed you two…” he murmurs in Ayame’s hair, against Kaede’s cheeks.

There’s an uncertainty in his tone Suga doesn’t like.

The kids run back to the chair to see who gets to occupy the most space, and Daichi-san stands upright again, his eyes finally on Suga.

“Hey…”

“Hey.”

“What are you doing today?”

Suga gestures at the bushes on the ground, the pink and yellow and red buds almost glowing among the greens and browns.

Daichi-san nods, mechanical, mind clearly a thousand miles away. “Looks good. Roses, right?”

“Yes.”

_What’s going on? What’s happened? Daichi?_

Suga has his name on his lips. He swallows it down. Takes a step forward and without looking away from Daichi-san’s face asks Mrs. Devaux to browse the catalogs with the kids. “See if you can pick some more plants we can get,” he tells the kids, who are glancing from him to Daichi-san with lost expressions on their faces. At his words they nod.

Passing them by both Suga and Daichi reach out to ruffle their hair and thankfully the kids don’t try to follow them inside.

Suga only asks when the kitchen door is safely closed behind them. “What is it?”

Daichi-san shrugs but it’s weird. It’s meant to be a casual gesture but he’s too tense for it to work. “It’s nothing too serious,” he says, fills a glass with water, “really.” He drinks it.

At the thud the glass makes against the counter Suga jumps.

Daichi turns toward him, as startled as Suga is, and mutters an apology under his breath. “It’s really nothing, Suga. Just Yurika wanting what is expected of her.”

“Which is?”

“To see her children.”

Daichi-san is right, if this is all there is to it then it’s nothing.

Still Suga doesn’t relax, his back so rigid against the door the wood is bruising his shoulder blades. “That’s good, right? For the kids, I mean.”

Daichi-san nods. “Yes. They deserve to see their mother…”

Alright, time to cut the crap. “And when is that going to be?” Suga asks, and the words scratch his throat, claw out of his mouth with the vehemence of his worry.

“When is what going to be?”

“You know.”

Daichi-san laughs and it’s ugly, it’s not him. It doesn’t make his entire body shake, his eyes don’t crinkle at the corners in that way Suga has come to…like so much. They are burning instead, as they finally rise to meet Suga’s, like coal deep inside the fireplace. “Every weekend.”

No.

“No.”

The word hangs in the air, fills the room before Daichi-san can finish and causes him to start. Suga really didn’t mean to say it quite this loud.

Daichi-san laughs again. It’s a little more honest, and it stays in the upturned curve of his mouth. “No?” he repeats and he’s almost teasing. “I don’t think you get a say in this, Suga.”

_Of course i don’t, why should i._

It stings, the way he says it. It stings even more to know it’s the truth.

Suga swallows and there’s a bitter taste on his tongue. “I know but…”

Daichi-san  doesn’t even give him the time to formulate that thought. “Yurika deserves to see her children,” he repeats, even though this is so not the point. So not what Suga is questioning.

“Of course she does-”

“It’s what we agreed on, what the judge decided: joint custody. The kids live with me but still she can see them whenever she wants-”

“I know but it’s not fair!”

A loud bang follows, and Suga doesn’t understand immediately it was Daichi-san’s fist against the surface of the counter it’s so unexpected. “Don’t you think I know that?” Daichi-san is saying and finally, _finally_ , his voice comes out sincere, trembling with the rage Suga could see in his eyes, hear in his steps as soon as he arrived.

“She asked for every weekend. Every. Fucking. Weekend. The only days I get to actually enjoy my children. Of course it’s not fucking fair!”

After the loud boom of his patience running thin he’s whispering now, hissing words that part the air and slither through every pore of Suga’s skin. Suga leans on the door, the back of his head hits the wood with a soft thud, and he lets it all happen. It’s better, that Daichi-san takes it all out here, now, on him.

“And I consoled her the other day, I held her and reassured her and she was probably already thinking of pulling this shit on me.”

So that’s what they were doing in the store closet, Suga had been wondering. Well, more than wondering, he was chewing on his nails the whole time they were gone, thinking that surely they’d gotten caught up in the lingering feelings that still existed between the two of them. He’d almost drawn blood from his pinky. Sachiko-san had noticed then, and had immediately gone upstairs to fetch them.

But apparently, all they had done was talking.

“Daichi-san, your ex wife doesn’t really seem capable of such a low blow…”

Daichi-san stops his pacing and looks up at him, surprised, as though only now he’s remembering Suga’s still in the room with him, has been the whole time.

“And how would you know?” he asks and now he’s not just pacing, but walking toward Suga. “Do you have some kind of mind-reading ability, an unexpected inside knowledge to my ex wife’s brain that makes you say such a thing?”

His eyes bore into Suga and they are so dark it’s almost impossible to distinguish the iris from the blown-wide pupils. Like this, Daichi-san makes quite the terrifying picture.

Too bad Suga has grown to know him a little too well to get that much intimidated. “You told me, Daichi-san,” he tells him, spells out every word for him, “that day while we were washing the dishes, you kept repeating that Yurika-san is not a bad person and I believed you. I believe that.”

Daichi-san doesn’t answer him for a long while.

The clock on the kitchen wall keeps tick-tocking, announces every second that passes by. Daichi-san stares, he looks at Suga, follows the line of his jaw, the shadow cast by high cheeckbones and the upturned point of his nose. For a second his eyes fall on Suga’s lips but Suga’s heart doesn’t even have the time to skip a beat that they’ve already moved somewhere else.

“Daichi-san?”

“You really are just a kid…”

He doesn’t say it as an insult, but as a quiet, maybe resigned, observation. It hurts all the same, it’s disappointing, and Suga’s nails dig into the fabric of his jeans. “Why?”

A smile, not gentle nor sarcastic. “Because this is not about bad person versus good person. This is a divorce, with children involved. Do you really think that, faced with the possibility of losing our children, Yurika and I ever gave a damn about resulting bad or good?”

“I know you did.”

Suga says and Daichi’s expression falters, his breath breaks on Suga’s skin, irregular.

Suga repeats it, once more, eyes still fixed in Daichi’s. “I know you did, because you are too loyal not to. You are too good a man not to.”

“You never went after your wife, even after the papers were signed. You never tried to find dirt on her because you still, always considered her a friend. And you knew that ruining what was left of your relationship with her was something you would have always regretted. Did I get anything wrong?”

Daichi-san doesn’t say anything. His mouth opens and closes around an answer, only for it to be swallowed down before it can make its way out.

Doesn’t matter, really, Suga already knows it. “Even a child like me could see that,” he whispers and the twisted, petty part of him he tries his best not to show others rejoices at the way Daichi-san winces.

With that Suga gives his back to Daichi-san and turns the doorknob. They have been away for too long, he’s sure the kids must be worried. Besides, it’s not fair to leave Mrs. Devaux alone to watch them, she’s a certain age…

A broad, calloused hand closes around his own and turns the door closed again with a quick twist.

“I have offended you.”

It’s not a question, but for the softness of Daichi-san’s voice Suga answers anyway. “You have.”

The warmth of Daichi-san’s body is overwhelming, they are not even touching and yet Suga’s back feels on fire. His hair moves with every breath Daichi-san takes, tickles his nape.

Suga sighs. “I don’t…I don’t appreciate being judged on the account of my age, I don’t appreciate my opinions being dismissed because of it. My _experiences_ being dismissed because of it.”

He turns again and the tip of his nose almost bumps against Daichi-san’s. This is so close, so similar to his dreams…

He stares deep inside Daichi-san’s eyes and nowhere else. “I thought we…you and I had moved past that stage…”

“I’m eight years your junior, and I know that’s a lot but that doesn’t mean you are allowed to patronize me, talk to me like I’m one of your children.”

“Suga…”

“Have I made myself clear?”

Daichi-san squeezes his hand – _they are still joined, why are they still joined, why does this keep happening?_ – and nods. He looks surprised, a little caught off guard, like the ground just opened under his feet. But maybe…maybe impressed too, in a way. “You have.”

Suga nods back but when Daichi-san still doesn’t move, doesn’t let him go he cocks his head to the side and waits.

He’s always been good at that. Waiting.

“I’m sorry,” Daichi-san says then and his eyes are again that comforting brown Suga had started to miss. “I don’t…I don’t think of you as a child, far from it,” there’s a little strain in his voice now, but it disappears with his last words, “I’ve come to really value your opinion these past months, please believe that.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely.”

Suga feels it, a small quiver in his chest, too similar to what he’d felt – what _had_ he felt? – at the train station, on that stupid, stupid platform. He attempts a smile and rests his back on the door once more. He tells himself it’s just for support, and not for fear he might lean in, lean close to Daichi-san, but it doesn’t really work.

Defuse, it’s definitely time to defuse and then _go_.

“W-well, that’s good because my opinion is very valuable.”

_Nice one, Koushi._

Daichi-san huffs and shakes his head, an amused grin playing on his lips. “If you say so.”

_Alright you are doing it, keep concentrating on messing with him._

“No, _you_ said so!”

“And you are never going to let me forget about it, is that right?”

_Hell no._

“Hello no.”

A moment of silence, Suga’s heart is beating in sync with the clock.

“Call Yurika-san,” he says in the end.

It’s time for him to go, it’s his turn to wash the dishes tonight. Not to mention he really needs to do some laundry, all his clothes are either covered in cat hairs, in soil or have nasty marker stains in various places. But he doesn’t want to go, he can’t go until he knows he’ll be leaving Daichi-san in a much better mood, in a much better situation than he’s in now.

“Call her,” he says again, “tell her her request is unacceptable and it’s not fair of her to want to be a weekend parent. It’s not right, that she would try to make up for lost times, for…for the past three months at your expense.”

“So that’s why you think she’s doing this…” Daichi-san’s voice trails off as realization dawns on him. “Oh, so _that’s.._.”

“Yeah…”

“That makes sense.”

Of course it does, because that’s what a mother would do. A mother who loves her children, Suga amends, and is desperate to patch up the relationship with them. And Yurika-san deserves that chance, the kids deserve that chance and Suga has to…for the kids’ sake he has to do what’s right.

He takes a deep breath and makes sure to look anywhere but at Daichi-san as these words leave his mouth. “You could, you could agree on every other weekend and…and on the weekends the kids are scheduled to be with you she…she can take them mid-week.”

“That’s, that’s fair, right?”

It is fair, it’s only fair like this.

Daichi-san is still looking at him, hasn’t looked anywhere else since they first walked in the kitchen. “That means you would have to come less.” His voice is strangely weak, his observation strangely a question.

Suga’s eyes fall to the floor. “Well, yeah. I have no reason to come if the children are not here…”

He hates how his voice shakes, he hates what he’s trying to say. “But it’s only a couple of days less, every two weeks. That’s not, that’s not a lot.”

Then why does it feel like too much?

Daichi-san takes another step forward and suddenly the tips of their feet are touching. Daichi-san is still wearing the shoes he went to work with, simple, elegant Oxfords of soft, black leather. In his haste, or better, in his anger, he’d forgotten to take them off.

They result almost painfully shiny near Suga’s white, thick socks with octopuses on them.

“Are you ok with that? With, with working less?”

Working. That’s right, that’s what it is.

“Mmm”

He can’t say more so he just nods.

It’s so stupid, everything about this is so stupid. What can it matter, not seeing the kids for two days every two weeks. He spends every weekend away from them, he’s lived twenty-fucking-five years of his life without them, without Daichi-san.Why does it matter so much to him?

“Call Yurika-san, now,” he says, once again, and before Daichi-san can get a chance to reply, prolong this conversation even more, Suga opens the door and gets out of the kitchen.

_He’s_ so stupid. He knew this day would come, in a way he was even waiting for it. So why is it hitting him so hard now?

He stops by the window that gives to the garden, to the front gate, and catches sight of the kids digging in the ground and Mrs. Devaux watching them with a smile on her face.

How could he lose sight of his purpose, of his role in this house?

Maybe noticing the rustling of the curtains Kaede looks up and when he sees Suga he smiles – that wonderful, precious smile – and waves. Ayame follows her brother’s gaze and soon she’s waving too, gesturing for him to come outside.

He’s the nanny here. For the kids, for Daichi-san, he’s an employee. He gets paid to do the work he does, he gets paid to look after Kaede, to help Ayame do her homework. He’s not…he’s not family.

In the grand scheme of things he doesn’t matter, not one bit. So of course, of course he had to be the one to step down so that Yurika-san could be with her children more. Ayame and Kaede are her children, hers and Daichi-san’s. And Daichi-san…Daichi-san is his employer, he could become a friend, he is slowly becoming a friend but there’s no space for Suga here. In this family, in this house.

And he has no right to ask for one, no right to even want it.

So Suga waves back and moves away from the glass, slowly toward the front door. His eyes are burning. He takes a deep breath, stamps a smile on his face – always a smile – and steps outside.

“So, what are you two up to?”

Ayame shows Suga something…something long and brown and slimy. “Dede found a worm and we’re trying to see if there are more!”

Suga nods and quickly averts his eyes. “I, um, i think i’ll pass on this one, alright?”

Ayame shrugs and throws the presumably dead worm away to keep looking for new ones with her brother.

Suga goes to sit on the lawn chair next to Mrs. Devaux and it’s only when the kids are out of earshot that she leans close to him and asks “Is everything alright, Koushi-kun?”

Suga nods but his hands look for Mrs. Devaux’s again. They find them immediately.

 

The talk with Yurika-san must have been brief because Daichi-san appears by the front door only about five minutes later. He meets Suga’s eyes and gives him a quick nod, so it must have been successful too.

“Well, I think it’s about time Mrs. Devaux and I get going,” Suga says and springs up from the chair to wish the children goodnight.

“Be good,” he tells them and smiles at Ayame’s quick “we always are”.

Daichi-san shakes hands with Mrs. Devaux again and bows gratefully at her.

Then his hand falls heavy on Suga’s shoulder and Suga almost jumps.

“I don’t…I don’t know how to…” Daichi-san is stammering, like Suga has never heard him do before. He gives an awkward chuckle and it’s so charming, so incredibly charming it’s enough to make Suga blush.“I’m running out of ways to thank you,” he says at last, in a whisper.

“Oh no, you don’t need to-”

“Believe me, Suga, I do.”

Daichi-san squeezes his shoulder, then his palm glides over the fabric of Suga’s shirt, down the length of his arm to stroke the tender skin in the crook of his elbow.

“Yurika asked me to tell you that your salary is not going to be subjected to any changes. She…she really appreciates what you’re doing for the kids,” he adds and now he sounds reluctant.

Suga shrugs, shakes his head like he’s shaking those words away. “I couldn’t care less about the money,” he says, a little too harsh.

And it’s true, as it’s true that he messed up, in more ways than once. Too many ways to count.

Daichi-san smiles at him. “I know,” he says, “I told her you don’t but she insisted I make it clear to you…”

“It’s alright. Thank her for me.”

Suga moves away and Daichi-san’s hand falls along his side again.

“See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, see you.”

Suga waves at the Kaede, gives Ayame another kiss and follows Mrs. Devaux outside the gate.


	11. Joining up the pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts, games and wine. And two men.

Act normal. Keep behaving like usual, because when you are that far down the road there’s no way for you to go back anymore.

It’s become his mantra in the past couple of days.

Suga washes his face and watches droplets of freezing water crawl down the bridge of his nose, the corners of his eyes, to crash on the cold stone of the bathroom sink.

He takes a towel from the holder and dries his face, with so much energy his skin turns pink.

He’s too far gone to do something about this, he knows now. He should have known from the very first time he’d laid eyes on those kids, on him.

But maybe, maybe in the course of twenty years he’s gotten a little too good at shutting down the parts of him that don’t abide to his laws, to his ideas of logic. He had to, he felt like he had to after she left. Now it’s become yet another burden, another flaw in his character.

Still he _is_ too far down that road. Dragging with him these feelings he was not prepared to feel, losing himself in thoughts he never wanted to have. Not about a family that can’t be his own, not about…

No. No, he’s not ready to admit that, not even to himself.

He sighs and passes a hand through his hair. It falls right back in his eyes, still a little damp at the tips, some of it sticks to his lips. He lets it, it’s a lost cause anyway, and starts collecting his clothes, scattered everywhere around the narrow bathroom.

He can’t leave. Less than two months and he’s already chained, already so attached his breath catches in his throat at the simple thought of quitting.

No, he can’t leave.                                       

So really all that’s left for him to do now is continue to do his job and prepare himself for the nasty fall. At least that’s something he’s had some practice doing.

In a swift, clumsy gesture he steps into his pants and gets out of Satori’s bathroom.

 

*

 

 

“THIS CAN’T POSSIBLY BE FAIR!” Daichi-san booms, the joystick still clutched in his hands.

He is staring at the TV screen with wide, disbelieving eyes, his jaw hanging loose. “This can’t…this isn’t…”

Suga raises his hands and high-fives Ayame, who is sitting on the couch behind him.

“And that’s how it’s done,” he says and drops the controller on his lap.

On the screen, in bright white letters glows:

WINNER: THE SHRIMPSTERS!

Daichi-san and Kaede had laughed when they’d first heard the name he and Ayame had chosen for their team of two. Well, they are not laughing now that’s for sure. In fact Kaede looks pretty close to tears.

“And that makes it 12 to 0!” Ayame sing-songs in his ear with a shit-eating grin on her face. Kaede tries to push her away, but misses and almost topples off the couch.

Suga makes a show of cracking his knuckles and gloats with her. “Do you want a rematch, Daichi-san?” he taunts, and smirks when instead of answering the man in question silently restarts the game with a scowl on his face.

And just like that it’s _on_ again.

Suga has a slow start, another car accidentally bumps into him and forces him off the track making him lose precious time and sense of direction. He chances a look at Daichi-san, whose eyes are glued to the TV, and a shiver runs down his spine. The man is out for blood, hunched down on himself and biting the inside of his cheek in nerves, he’s all deadly focus and hunger for victory. His eyes are darker than Suga has ever seen them.

It’s kind of arousing, and they are just playing Need for Speed. Imagine if they were actually-

“Suga-san watch the road!” Ayame screeches in his ear.

“Yeah, Suga-san. Watch the road.”

Suga takes his eyes off the strong line of Daichi-san’s jaw and sure enough, he’s fallen really far behind. Shit.

Daichi-san smirks and leans closer to the TV. “This is our chance, son,” he tells Kaede, smugness seeping throuh his every pore. Kaede nods and stands on the couch to see better.

“Don’t let them win this, Suga-san,” now Ayame’s voice is a vicious whisper and Suga feels sorry for all the kids who’ve had to face her in a match. She is absolutely merciless in her competitiveness and thirst for victory, just like her father.

Suga shifts and kneels on the floor. _And just like me_ , he thinks to himself.

Now it’s time to play for real. With Ayame clinging to the back of his shirt he presses on the accelerator and goes. He surpasses a car, then another. A red one tries to cut him off so he rear-ends it and makes it crash into a tree. He loses his bumper in the process but honestly who the hell cares.

“Yes, Suga-san! YES!”

He cuts a chicane, rides all over the grass near the trail and finally he can see it, the outrageous orange and black of Daichi-san’s car. There’s a crow painted near the left posterior light, it’s eerily similar to the one Suga has tattooed on the arc of his foot.

He aims right for it.

The two cars crash and Daichi-san bites his lip so hard he almost draws blood not to curse in front of his children. Suga throws his head back and laughs.

They restart their cars and now they are side to side, in the game like in real life, so close their rear-view mirrors keep scratching against each other, so close their elbows are touching. Suga presses closer still, from shoulder to hip, and Daichi-san follows.

For a moment Suga is tempted to slow down, let them continue this way till the finish line but then their eyes meet, just a stolen look, and they both press on the accellerator at the same time.

Daichi-san has more oil in his tank, he didn’t have to start a mad chase like Suga, but he’s not nearly as reckless. And that, that will be his downfall. Suga moves inward and sends Daichi-san’s car off the road.

“What the f-mmm!”

 It’s not much, he could have sent it _flying_ at this speed, but it’s enough to get the man off his ass.

He accelerates and accelerates. The display high on the side flashes red. So few oil left.

“Come on, come on!” he mutters under his breath.

And there it is, the black and white checkered flag that signals the finish line, the end of the race. With one last push he speeds past Daichi-san, past everybody, and...

WINNER: THE SHRIMPSTERS!

He jumps to his feet and picks Ayame up. They twirl around the living room, laughing and screaming at the top of their lungs like Tooru did after Beyoncè dropped Lemonade.

“13 to 0, you losers!” Ayame yells at her father, at her brother. She is red in the cheeks with euphoria.

Kaede puts his face in his hands and shakes his head, he can’t believe it. Daichi-san on the other hand _refuses_ to believe it.

“You!” he booms, he points at Suga accusingly, “You cut the curve, you sent a car flying, you almost sent _my_ car flying!”

Suga shrugs his shoulder, 100% unapologetic, and throws him a cheeky smirk. “It’s all allowed here, Daichi-san, and you know it.”

He takes a step toward him, then another, till they are standing almost nose to nose. He whispers it directly on Daichi-san’s lips: “So take your defeat with _dignity_.”

Daichi-san looks about to protest, then his face falls as he remembers. The first afternoon Suga had spent with the kids, saying these exact same words to them after they’d accused Suga of cheating. He closes his mouth shut and swallows down his words, his indignation.

In the high of the win Suga lets himself follow it, the bobbing of Daichi-san’s throat, the column of his neck. He takes in the stubble on Daichi-san’s chin and stops, lingers on the lips just a few inches away from his own, well-shaped, thin and a little chapped, inviting. He grants himself a look and his heart rushes in his chest, too fast, too big for his body. For this entire house.

“Suga-san!”

He looks because that’s all he can do.

In his dreams he’s kissed every inch of that face, the sharp line of Daichi-san’s nose, the corner of his jaw. He’s gone further than that, has touched, has licked places he can’t see now, covered by clothes, but that he remembers all too well, from that morning in the kitchen.

The muscles in Daichi-san’s back, the breadth of his shoulders, and his chest. His chest, covered in fine, black hair…

God, he remembers so well. Every detail of him has carved itself in Suga’s brain.

“Suga-san…?”

Ayame stops pestering her brother for a second to jump in Suga’s arms again, without any warning – or maybe she did give him one, his ears are kind of buzzing right now - and boy, he’s never been more grateful for a distraction.

“We make a great team, Suga-san!” she says, her brash grin lights up the entire room.

Suga closes his eyes for a moment and tries to ignore the bitterness of guilt that has replaced his…admiration.

So much for acting normal.

He puts on a smile and pinches Ayame’s cheek. “We sure do, shrimpster.” He’s out of breath, and there’s no way it’s still the high from the race.

“We should play another game!” Ayame adds but no, no, Suga wouldn’t be able to handle it.

He needs to leave now, lock himself in his room and never come out again.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea…” he starts to say but before he can disappoint Ayame with his refusal a single knock on the front door causes everyone to freeze.

Suga’s stomach drops to his feet.

Daichi-san tenses, his face now covered in shadows, and he doesn’t have the time to take even a single step toward the door that Yurika-san is already there, a copy of the keys dangling from her hand and a lovely, almost giddy smile on her face.

“Hi there,” she says, a little out of breath, “Are you, um, are you kids ready?”

Her eyes go from Kaede, sitting morosely on the couch, to Ayame, who still has her arms around Suga’s waist, and linger there.

The edges of her smile quiver and Suga taps his finger on Ayame’s forehead to get her attention.

“Go say hello to your mother,” he whispers, as soft as he can, in her hair.

Ayame nods and lets go of Suga at once with a last, gentle – kind of hard – squeeze. She skips across the room to greet her mother, her usual brilliant grin in place - although maybe a little nervous – and stands on her tippy toes to give Yurika-san a kiss.

“Hey, mom!”

Yurika-san leans down a little, but not too much, she is not exactly a tall woman, and accepts the kiss. Gives Ayame one of her own.

Kaede follows his sister’s example, albeit with a little less enthusiasm. Indeed, he’s the picture of misery.

“Mom,” he whispers once he’s closer to her.

“What is it, love?”

“Daddy is terrible at videogames,” he says, louder now, then throws a mutinous look first his father’s then Ayame’s way. “Next time I’m on Suga-san’s team!”

“It’s not my fault I was faster than you at picking him!” Ayame tells him, hands on her hips in what Suga has come to fondly think of as an imitation of his ‘’signature pose’’. That’s how Tooru likes to call it.

“Yes it was, you chose Need for Speed only because you wanted to play on Suga-san’s team. You hate Need for Speed!”

“I don’t hate it, it’s just that you and daddy both stink at it so there’s never any fun in playing it!”

“Ayame!”

“Hey! I don’t stink!”

“Don’t repeat that word, Kaede!”

“Don’t worry, Kaede-kun, you don’t stink at all. It’s just your father, he’s the one who’s truly terrible.”

“S-Suga!”

“Thank you, Suga-san!”

“Alright, that’s quite enough!” Yurika-san raises her voice above the ruckus and everybody stops talking straight away.

It’s impressive. Suga is - grudgingly - impressed.

“Kaede, don’t use that word again. Ayame, stop teaching your brother words inappropriate for his age-”

“It’s not my fault!”

“And you!” she points right at Daichi-san, “Why were the kids allowed to play that game in the first place? It’s yours, and hardly appropriate for them!”

“It’s car racing, Yurika, nothing extreme or indecent!”

Whatever reproach Yurika-san means to aim Daichi-san’s way is interrupted by the sound of Suga’s phone ringing. The first, unmistakable notes of ‘You can leave your hat on’ fill the room and Suga almost trips on his own two feet in his hurry to reach it and _make_ _it_ _stop_.

Fuck. That asshole changed his ringtone again.

He’s so going to murder Satori. Well, ok, maybe not murder him but he _is_ going to deny every request for a blow job the guy advances.

“Hello?” Suga hisses and tries to ignore the four pairs of eyes staring at him.

The kids don’t seem too bothered really, just amused by his clumsiness but Yurika-san is throwing daggers at him with her eyes. And Daichi-san,…judging by the way his shoulders are shaking Daichi-san is just feeling thoroughly entertained by the whole thing.

Good for him. After all, Yurika-san has finally changed the target of her disdain.

Suga coughs in his hand and pointedly turns his back to her.

“Where are you?” Satori is hissing back in Suga’s ear. He sounds annoyed.

_What reason does the jerk have to be annoy-_

Suga catches sight of the time on the wall clock above the TV and winces.

Alright, so maybe he has _one_ good reason…

“I’m so sorry, I lost track of time. Just give me 20 minutes!” he babbles, already looking for his bag with his eyes.

He doesn’t even give the guy the chance to say ‘ok’ that he’s already hung up.

He’d said he would meet Satori at his favourite cafè at 19:30. It’s almost 19:45 now. And to think Daichi-san was home by six today. But when Ayame had proposed a team game he hadn’t had the heart to say no, didn’t want to say no, especially considering he won’t get to see the kids for the next two whole days. Daichi-san looking at him with a clear challenge in his eyes might have also been a factor in his decision-making process. Might have.

He’ll have to make it up to Satori, big time. In ways that might involve showing off his lack of gag reflex, he’s not sure yet.

“Do you need to go, Suga-san?” Ayame asks.

“Yeah, I have a date- um, a thing with…with people,” he stutters through his excuse like a straight As student who forgot to do his homework.

It’s too late though, Ayame’s eyes are already sparkling with curiosity. “You have a date?!” she chirps, loud enough to wake the dead.

“A date?” echoes Daichi-san, frozen in the act of tidying up the mess of pillows and blankets the couch had become during the race.

Suga feels an all too familiar heat make its way up his face. “Yeah, um, sort of?”

‘Kind of’ is a hell of a euphemism, but he can hardly say he’s meeting up with a guy for a coffee so they can discuss where it’ll be more convenient for them to hook up.

“Actually I kind of need to get changed…” he stutters again and carefully avoids meeting Yurika-san’s eyes, which are still ablaze with outrage. It’s going to take a long time to make her forget about this, he’s sure.

From behind the pile of pillows Daichi-san waves his hand around in the direction of the stairs. “Feel free to use my bedroom or my personal bathroom, Suga.” The tone of his voice is kind, if a little gravelly.

Suga nods and thanks him as he walks by. Daichi-san winks at him in reply, only to be hit in the back of the head by Yurika-san. A weird, intense look passes between the two of them, a silent conversation that ends with Daichi-san huffing, clearly annoyed, and blushing around the ears.

Suga has no idea what just went on between them but the scowl on Daichi-san’s face is very charming.

A sigh escapes him, unbidden and pathetic, and he hurries upstairs before he can do or say anything that will give away his…you know….

Despite the kind offer he makes sure to steer clear from Daichi-san’s bedroom – his hormones have been acting up lately, he _really_ doesn’t need an accurate background to his…thoughts – and throws himself in the guests’ bathroom, the smallest of the three, at the very end of the hallway.

He dresses in a hurry, elbows and knees constantly, awkwardly hitting the wall and the sink with every move he makes. He turns around and around to check himself from every angle in the wonderful, ample mirror above the double sink and when he’s satisfied with the way the tight blue jeans hug his ass – _Tooru was right!_ – and the wide neck t-shirt is artfully arranged to reveal his collarbones he nods at himself and goes.

“Wow, Suga-san!” Ayame says as he steps down the stairs.

“You like it?”

“Hell yeah!”

“Ayame!” he and Daichi-san exclaim. Then Daichi-san turns to look at him and gives him a lopsided smile.

“You look nice, Suga,” he says. Suga’s heart does a little flip.

_Stupid handsome men with their stupid broad shoulders and charming manners, I’m too gay for this._

“Thank you,” he limits himself to mutter.

“Alright, we’ll be right behind you, Sugawara-kun!” Yurika-san adds from a few steps away. She’s frantically looking around the room to see if the kids are forgetting something, so thankfully for Ayame she missed her daughter’s comment. And Daichi-san’s.

“Grab your jackets, you two, because it’s really time to get going.”

She gently pushes the children toward the door but at the last moment Ayame remembers she left her shrimp plushie upstairs and Kaede his hat so they run up the stairs to get them.

Yurika-san follows them, like a bloodhound on a trail. “One of these days you are going to forget your heads too!”, she yells but as she passes by Suga she stops to look him up and down for a moment.

Despite himself Suga can’t really help but squirm under the sharpness of her gaze.

Then she speaks. “You look lovely, Sugawara-kun,” she says and Suga blinks at her, not really sure he heard that right. “Good luck on your date.”

“T-thank you?”

She gives him a quick nod and disappears up the stairs as well.

It only takes a good look at Daichi-san, whose eyes have inexplicably fallen somewhere on the level of Suga’s hips, for Suga to know.

“You asked her to say something nice to me, didn’t you?”

Daichi-san starts and swiftly looks up and away from whatever it was he was staring at. “Um, no, actually I just asked her to be nicer to you in general.”

“What a big difference that makes.”

“Hey, she came up with that compliment all by herself!”

Suga snorts but a smile is already making its way back on his face. It’s sweet, that Daichi-san asked that of her. Very sweet.

“Thank you.”

Daichi-san shrugs and rubs the back of his neck, the way he does whenever he’s embarrassed. “It’s nothing but, um, shouldn’t you be going?”

Suga looks at the clock again. It’s almost 8, if he takes any longer he’s not going to find anyone waiting for him at the cafè. “Yeah, yeah I really should.”

“I could give you a ride, if you need…”

“No, it’s fine. The coffee shop is only a few blocks away.”

Daichi-san’s shoulders drop and a thought occurrs to Suga.

He walks closer to him and, before he can think better of it, rests a hand on his arm. “Are you going to be ok, Daichi-san? Do you, do you have any plans?”

_Because I can cancel, I can stay with you if you need…_

It’s almost on his lips, the offer. This is the first day in months Daichi-san is spending without his kids, and it mustn’t be easy for him. Suga could stay, he wants to stay-

“Yeah, I do have plans actually.”

Oh.

Of course.

“Really?”

“Mmm, I took your advice,” Daichi-san is saying, an uncertain look on his face, “I asked Mai out, like you said I should, that day at the ramen place?”

Suga nods and smiles at him. Hopes it’s convincing.

It stings, fuck it stings. It’s like he’s being prodded by dozens of scorching needles, between his chest, low in his stomach. But in a way, _deep_ down he’s relieved too. He doesn’t want Daichi-san to spend the evening alone, and Inoue-san, well, Daichi-san couldn’t have picked better company.

So he tells him, not everything, but some of it. “I’m glad. With Inoue-san you’re sure to have a good time.”

“Um…”

Fuck.

“Oh God, I didn’t mean that way! I just meant that..”

_Fuck fuck fuck._

“…that she seems fun and…and…”

_On what planet is this acting normal?_

Daichi-san takes him by the shoulders and shushes him with a pointed look.

_Oh, thank God._

“I know, I got what you mean, Suga. It’s ok.”

He’s talking to him the same way he’d talk to his children.

Great. As if Daichi-san needed one more reason to consider him a dumb, immature college kid.

Rapid steps down the stairs.

Daichi-san lets him go and Suga walks away from him. His cheeks must be a nasty crimson, they feel on fire.

He stiffly makes his way to the front door and sits down to put on his shoes.

The smile returns to his face only when Kaede comes to sit next to him to do the same.

“Got everything?”

Kaede nods and reaches out to pull at Suga’s sidebangs, so long now they are starting to curl at the tips. He pulls – gently – till they are straight, then lets them go to see them curl again and brush against Suga’s cheeks.

Ayame comes up behind them and rests her hands on Suga’s shoulders. “Can you pass me the blue shoes, Suga-san?”

Suga takes a pair of Converse from the shelf and hands them to her. Then stands up to leave, his bag slung over his shoulder.

“Have fun, you two,” he tells the kids and suddenly his stomach is tying itself up in knots again. It’s weird, thinking he won’t be seeing them the next couple of days, and not in a good way.

He already knows he’s going to miss them.

“You too, Suga-san” Kaede tells him and takes Suga’s hand in both his own. Their way to say goodbye.

Ayame hugs his waist and Suga presses a kiss in her hair. “Text me whenever, alright?”

She nods against his sternum and just like that Suga starts to feel a little lighter.

He bows at Yurika-san and holds Daichi-san’s gaze for a moment. There’s already a vague, frenzied sadness in the man’s eyes and Suga wishes he could take a step forward, he wishes he had the knowledge, the surety that he wouldn’t be pushed away if he tried to close his arms around Daichi-san’s shoulders.

Suga wishes many things.

“See you, Daichi-san.”

“See you, Suga. Have a good night.”

“For sure he will!” Ayame’s voice has them both jumping out of their skins. One of her shoes is still untied and she is staring at Suga with a very, very mischievous smile on her face.

“Your date is so going to drop dead as soon as they see you!”

Laughter explodes in Suga’s chest, sudden, and boy, he’s never loved Ayame more. She could make Moaning Myrtle laugh and feel better about herself.

Suga winks at her, mutters a soft ‘thank you’ and all but sashays outside the house, an exaggerated swing to his hips. From the front porch he can hear Ayame and Kaede’s giggles.

Then a loud, labored wheezing sort of noise breaks the quiet, making Suga almost trip. He turns around again to see what’s wrong, alarmed, but it’s just Daichi-san coughing, a hand up to cover his mouth and his shoulders shaking.

Yurika-san is staring at him with murder in her eyes.

Suga tries to take a step toward Daichi-san but the man immediately waves him off.

“I’m fine, just, the pollution…” he says and nods his thanks at Kaede, who is unhelpfully patting his hip, too small to reach his father’s back.

Still more than a little confused, Suga nods at Daichi-san’s words and leaves with a last goodbye.

 

“Fuck…”

Suga lets himself drop and bounce on Satori’s bed and hisses at how sore he already feels. “Good fuck or bad fuck?” he asks between pants, still trying to catch his breath.

His lungs are burning with the need of oxygen.

“Good fuck,” Satori says. His eyes are still unfocused and he’s shaking his head at the ceiling, as though he can’t believe what just happened. “Excellent fuck. I think you broke my pelvis.”

Suga fans himself with his hand. Satori’s bedroom is a fricking oven. His whole house is, actually, which just proves Suga’s theory that Satori is actually part lizard and doesn’t fit well even in temperate climates.

“What can I say? I’ve always loved a good ride,” he says, can’t keep the smugness out of his voice, “it probably even tops volleyball as my favourite sport!”

Satori snorts at that and blindly reaches out to give Suga a playful smack. Catches Suga right on his chest and at Suga’s pained ‘ow’ he slowly starts to massage the soft skin in apology. His thumb skims over a nipple and Suga shivers, his breath hitches in his throat.

“Surely you don’t want to go again…” he says. He’s too sore for that, but damn it touching his nipples is the easiest way to get him going.

He hates that Satori took so little to figure it out.

“Nah, I’m kind of hungry now,” Sator says but still his hand doesn’t move.

So Suga slaps it away. “Me too, so go order a pizza or something.”

And with that he rolls over, so he’s lying on his stomach and his nipples are safely pressed against the mattress.

“Man, you really are bossy all the time, not just when you’re in the mood to screw.”

“That’s right and you like it, so eggplant and spicy salami topping, please!”

Satori salutes him and walks outside to make the call, not before leaning down to pinch Suga’s butt though.

“Hey!”

The door closes to Satori’s obnoxious, childish snickers.

Alone again, Suga’s eyes fall to his phone. It’s been dead quiet since he left the Sawamura house, and it’s not like he expected Ayame to text him so soon, she and Kaede are probably still settling in Yurika-san’s new house, but he can’t help the weight sitting heavy on the pit of his stomach.

He hopes they are alright. Hell, they are with their mother, he knows they are alright.

And Daichi-san…

Daichi-san has a stunningly beautiful woman to distract him so really, Suga has no reason to worry about him either. He must be doing just fine. More than fine.

 

*

 

 

Daichi wakes to a hot mouth kissing his neck and the reflection of moonlight hair glittering in the sun behind his eyelids.

“Good morning, you,” a familar, husky voice says and just like that golden eyes turn hazel, silver colors auburn.

Daichi blinks at the face closing in to his own and parts his lips for the kiss Mai is about to give him. Just a peck, nothing more. Still, a nice way to start the day.

He doesn’t want to think about how long it’s been since he was woken up by this. A kiss.

“Good morning,” he croaks.

His voice breaks, still raspy from sleep, and Mai grins. Moves in closer so her entire body is pressed against him, soft and warm and beautiful. Not to mention naked.

Good morning, indeed.

Still…

The light curtains billow with the summer breeze and from his window Daichi can see the tall, white picket fence. The far corner of the backyard, where that plant is growing. Wisteria, Suga had told him it was called. Only for a moment, before the curtains cover his sight again to fall back in place.

Daichi moves away from Mai, as gentle as he can be, and stands up in one quick jolt. Bad idea, the headrush and the sheets tangled between his legs almost have him fall back down again. He puts a hand on the headboard just in time to catch himself and drags the other across his face.

He’s all sweaty. He always gets so hot during the night, and Mai certainly didn’t help, what with her body being so close to his own and all that. Yeah, that’s the problem. The heat.

“Daichi?”

“I’m going to take a shower,” he tells her, without turning around, but makes sure to leave the bathroom door open in a clear invitation for her to join him.

He just needs to feel the cool water on his skin, gather his wits a little and not think too much about the fact that he had been dreaming about him.

He’d been _dreaming_ about him.

Daichi never remembers his dreams, in the morning light they are just flashes of images that make no sense, but he remembers Suga’s face, as clear as reality. They weren’t really doing anything – _what_ should they have been doing in the first place? – it was just Suga, next to him in the Karasuno gym, with a black and orange jersey on.

Daichi never got to ask him - or Hinata - about it. He has no clue what number he used to be, but in his dream he’s sure it had been a 2. It was a 2.

Suga was sitting – he was sitting, right? - cross-legged on the floor and smiling at the sunlight seeping through the narrow windows. He was talking too, saying words Daichi could not hear, in that soft, lilting voice of his. Then he turned away to follow the sound of shoes squeaking on the parquet and there it was, almost hidden by his hair, the little mole on his nape.

The one Daichi had noticed the other day, while they were arguing in the kitchen.

Such a small, stupid thing to focus on.

He throws his head back under the water jet and starts washing his hair.

Foam falls down his back. Right into his eyes.

Every.

Damn.

Time.

Shit, it stings.

“Fuck!”

“What’s going on in there?” Mai’s laughing voice reaches him and in the matter of seconds so do her hands, still impossibly warm on his sides.

“Here,” she wipes the watery foam off and away from his face and cards her fingers through his hair to let all the shampoo wash away.

Daichi’s eyes still burn, stay stubbornly closed, but he knows the picture Mai must make right now. Her long hair wet and sticking to the skin of her shoulders and back. Her body dripping with beads hungry to follow every curve of it. Impossibly beautiful.

Two months ago that would have been enough. Two months ago he would have paid just to get to see Mai like this. To spend time with her in peace, no sneaking around, no uncomfortable, muffled encounters in his office.

Today though.

Mai licks rivulets of water speeding down his neck and Daichi squeezes his eyes shut. Harder.

Maybe he’s just not in the mood.

 

Breakfast is quick, for the first time in years Daichi itches to get to work.

The empty stools by the kitchen island, the oppressing quiet around these walls sit heavy on his chest.

He drinks his coffee, too soon and too fast, and burns his tongue. Gives him another good reason to curse through his teeth.

Mai fixes her own with a little milk and drinks it with her usual calm, but she doesn’t sit, chooses to stand by the counter with her eyes fixed on Daichi. Passes him the sugar when he makes another attempt with the coffee.

“You’re in a weird mood today,” finally she says.

“I’m just tired,” he mutters between small sips. “Do you want something to eat? I can fix you a quick omelette…”

“No, no I’m fine. Besides, I don’t think I should stay any longer.”

He hates that a part of him agrees with her.

“It’s really…I’m sorry, Mai, it’s just…”

It’s just _what_?

“Look, Daichi, I understand,” she interrupts him placing a hand on his arm, the way she always does while they’re at the office, the only thing they can safely do in public, “your kids are away, it’s perfectly normal to feel upset.”

Yeah. That’s all there is to it. But then how does he explain the guilt he feels?

She presses a quick kiss on his cheek. “You wanted a distraction, and _I_ wanted to know how it feels to have sex with you without staplers and pens pinching and prodding my ass. We got it, so really there’s no reason to be sorry.”

No reason to be sorry.

“I should have asked you out before, though,” Daichi tries to say but all he gets is a shrug.

“You should have, if that’s what you wanted.”

Oh.

Put it like that it’s so simple.

“But you’re not the kind of man who refrains to do something without reasons,” Mai continues, “so let’s just…enjoy each other, the way we’ve done so far.”

Daichi nods at her, dumbfounded, but by the front door he takes her by the waist and kisses her till she’s breathless with it.

What he wants. Such an obvious reason.

It feels like, ever since the kids were born he’s stopped himself from really taking into account what he wants. It’s sad, really fucking sad, but thinking back on it divorcing was probably the only thing he allowed himself. And that too, really, was something Yurika suggested first.

_You don’t have to deny yourself._

Suga had said, back at the ramen place, but at the time Daichi had simply taken it as an encouragement to do what was right with Mai. Ask her out, take her to his place, have sex in a bed. Date her.

But what if, what if that’s not what he wants?

The next question comes, the only question that truly, really matters, and hits him like a punch in the gut.

If that’s not what he wants, then what is?

 

They walk to work together but arrive separately. Mai stops to look at shop windows and Daichi goes ahead. It’s not forbidden, entertaining relationships with coworkers here, but it is frowned upon and too many people caught on his and Mai’s flirtations just weeks after her arrival. He doesn’t want to give anyone reasons to tease, gossip, or really just focus their attention on them in any way.

The months before and after his divorce Daichi couldn’t enter a room without having colleagues suspiciously shut their mouths before him. He really, desperately doesn’t want a repeat of that experience. In every sense.

He waves at Tanaka, who gives him a half nod and seems well on his way to fall asleep with his face in his coffee, then to Nishinoya, chipper and obnoxiously energetic like every morning.

“Hey, Daichi-san!”

“Hey, Noya. Has Ennoshita arrived yet?”

“Yup! Came dragging a depressing amount of books with him. He looked ready to cry. In fact, if Chikara were a lesser man I’m sure he would have been.”

Daichi really can’t picture Ennoshita crying, or really looking anything but his usual, composed self. But then again, it’s exams time and he’s a law student. Daichi has tried on his skin how terrifying a period this is.

He nods at Nishinoya, pats Tanaka on the shoulder and makes his way upstairs.

As soon as he reaches his office he sees exactly what Nishinoya was talking about and what he dreaded.

Ennoshita is resting his head in a book and his shoulders are shaking. His hair is a disaster, messy and even a little greasy. His tie is hanging from the corner edge of the table and his jacket is on the floor near the chair, where it had probably been thrown over.

Daichi takes a tentative step toward him and clears his throat. “Um, Ennoshita-kun?”

Ennoshita lifts his head and bloody hell it looks like he hasn’t slept in two years. He hasn’t shaved either and the sight of stubble on his round, youthful face is frankly a little disarming.

“Are you alright, Ennoshita-kun?” Daichi asks slowly, low as not to spook him.

And Ennoshita speaks the two words Daichi never wanted to hear in his life ever again. “Civil Procedure.”

“Damn it.”

 

They have five appointments set for today but Daichi lets Ennoshita stay by the desk for the length of both of them. There’s no way the kid could concentrate on an actual case when ten and thousand fictional ones are messing with his head, and it’s always somehow ressuring to be in the presence of your textbooks even when you are not actually comprehending a single word you are reading.

In between pauses Daichi makes sure to always go check on him, and finds him more and more frenzied each time.

 

It’s 19:30 and Hazuki-san has just left with a file of crispy new papers to present her soon-not-anymore husband. Daichi takes Ennoshita by the back of his shirt and all but drags him out of the office, books under his arms and tie still on the desk.

“W-what are you doing, Sawamura-san?”

“You need to eat,” is all Daichi says and they march to the elevator together.

“Noya, Tanaka!” he bellows when they are out in the entrance.

“ _No_ , Sawamura-san, please no…”

Daichi ignores him and gestures for his friends to join him.

“Ennoshita has an exam, um, when is it, Ennoshita?”

“Monday.”

“Ennoshita has an exam on Monday, guys,” he looks Nishinoya in the eyes, then Tanaka.

They shiver with poorly-veiled terror, understand at once.

“Say no more, Daichi-san. You go ahead, we’ll follow suit.”

Daichi nods. Nishinoya and Tanaka nod back. Ennoshita looks terrified.

Daichi takes him by the shoulder this time and together they go – willing or unwilling – to the Italian restaurant a few blocks away.

It’s a nice place, cozy, all in shades of red and warm with the dark honey of wood. Low lights, heavy curtains, tablecloths that brush the floor. And Daichi’s favourite: shelves and shelves heavy with pictures of people no longer here, of actors of the golden ages, of the first owners of this place, come all the way from ‘Il Bel Paese’ well before World War I.

Just being here makes Daichi breathe a little more easily.

He orders lasagna for both of them and it’s gone in the matter of two minutes. He waves at the waiter, a jovial guy with large front teeth and a smile always ready, and holds up two fingers. The man, Giuseppe, winks at him and soon brings them another slice each.

They devour this one too, and when Giuseppe comes back he laughs.

“Another round, Daichi-san?”

Daichi holds up his hands in defeat and sees Ennoshita do the same.

“But maybe something sweet…” the guy whispers, almost to himself.

He probably hasn’t had a proper meal in a while, Daichi muses. College can be such a nightmare.

Giuseppe squeezes his shoulder amicably and Ennoshita even hazards a smile.

“I’ve got you, boy,” Giuseppe says.

And he delivers, oh boy does he deliver.

Ennoshita looks ready to weep when he first tastes a piece of Caprese.

“Much better than staying home and obsessing, right?” Daichi tells him with a knowing smirk.

Ennoshita nods, mouth still full of cake, then as the words register in his brain the haunted, horrified look comes back on his face.

Shit. That was probably not the best thing to tell the guy…

“I should…I really should go, Sawamura-san…” Ennoshita makes to stand, crumbs all around his mouth.

Daichi grabs his wrist and fixes him with his best captain look. “Not until Tanaka and Nishinoya get there.”

Ennoshita lets himself fall in his chair once again.

“What do you plan to do with me?” he asks, now nervously collecting icing sugar with the edge of his fork.

Knowing that Tanaka and Nishinoya will be actively involved in this has really shaken him. Poor guy.

“Well I’m not going to lie to you, Ennoshita. We mean to get you so drunk there’ll be no space left in your mind to worry about your exam.”

Ennoshita’s eyes widen and he opens his mouth to protest but Daichi stops him with a simple flick of his fingers. “But before that happens, meaning before Noya and Tanaka arrive…”

He plants his elbows on the table and rests his chin on his fist. “Let’s say i’m a man in my fifties, I was born and raised in Japan but for work I had to move to the States, where I now work in a factory…”

Ennoshita sits straight in his chair and finally retakes his serious, no messing around look he gets whenever he’s handling a case with him. Or at least he would, if he didn’t have a smudge of chocolate on his nose.

Daichi bites his lip not to laugh in the kid’s face and continues, “The factory is owned by a hugely successful American company…”

 

“So what would you do, as my lawyer?”

Ennoshita thinks a moment about it, then deflates. “As your lawyer? I would advise you to rethink pressing charge…”

“And why is that?”

“B-because there’s no basis to your claim!”

Daichi bangs his fist on the table and Ennoshita flinches, ready to either keel over and die or start sobbing.

“That’s exactly it!” Daichi tells him, so loud in his attempt to sound encouraging he’s almost screaming.

“What?”

“I have no case, no facts to stand on!”

“So I was right?”

Daichi nods and clinks his glass with Ennoshita’s, just in time for the front door to fall open with a soft tinkle. Nishinoya walks in, followed by Tanaka, and eyes their bottles of water with almost disgust.

He snaps his fingers at the waiter – Daichi has told him ten thousand times not to, only Humphrey Bogart could pull it off and even done by him was rude – and asks for a bottle of their finest red.

“Actually, make it three,” he amends as soon as Giuseppe arrives to bring two more chairs at their table.

Ennoshita has paled. “I…I really don’t think-”

“Good call, Chikara. Don’t think!”

Nishinoya slaps him on the back so hard he almost sends the guy face first on the table.

Tanaka pops the first bottle open, throws the rest of Ennoshita’s water in Daichi’s glass, and fills Ennoshita’s with wine. Rich, of a dark burgrundy, Ennoshita takes one look at it, makes to smell it like a real connoisseur, then shrugs and swallows it all down.

Tanaka and Nishinoya cheer, then fill his glass once more.

 

“An’ he was just so pretty, y’know?”

Ennoshita is saying, his words blur and mix, almost incomprehensible. “An’ I thought there was just no way he was gonna like me back, y’know?”

Tanaka nods and drains another glass of wine. “Yeah, I totally know what you mean.”

“But he did, I ask’d him out ‘n’ he said ye.”

“He said ‘ye’?” Nishinoya teases and bursts out laughing for no apparent reason.

“Yesssss. He said ‘yesssss’” Ennoshita enounces, hissing like a snake.

Daichi stares at them all and snorts. He’s not drunk, not even the right kind of tipsy, and he fully intends to keep it that way. Nevermind the constant efforts Nishinoya is making to get him there.

Truth is, he’s kind of a moody drunk. Moody and broody, like Yurika likes to say. _Liked_ to say.

He’s glad he went out with the guys, really, it’s a good way to put off the inevitable for a while but he doesn’t want to be drunk when he gets home, he doesn’t want to be drunk when it hits him, how empty his house is right now.

How did Yurika stand it for so long?

It’s been twenty-four hours since the kids left and he’s already aching for them. The only reason why he’s coping somehow is that, well, he really isn’t coping at all.

“And you’re still with this mysterious guy?” Nishinoya asks, and he sounds much less drunk than he is.

It’s one of his many talents.

Ennoshita nods and lights up like a Christmas tree just at the simple thought of this boy. “Yeah. ‘m still not sure how it all happened but he’s with him. With me, me, I mean. The prettiest guy in the world and he’s with me!”

Daichi sips his water to hide the bitter edges of his smile.

It’s been so long since he was so young and in love.

_I miss that…_

Suga’s voice in his brain. The longing in his eyes, their legs pressed close against each other under the table.

God, what is the matter with him today?

“Oooh, that’s a big claim! Prettiest guy in the world!”

“He is, Noya-san, I swear!”

“Eh, dunno about that. Have you seen this guy’s nanny?”

Daichi finds three pair of eyes stare at him and starts. “Um…”

He wonders if, even in their inebriated state, they can read it on his face, that he was just thinking about him.

“Oh yeah,” Ennoshita’s eyes have gone a little glassy, unfocused. “That was one pretty guy, too.”

_Apparently not._

“And did you see the ass on him?”

Suga swinging his hips, all dressed up for his date…

Daichi’s hand grips the glass so tight it threatens to break. “Nishinoya!” he growls.

He really, really doesn’t need a reminder of his nanny’s…graces right now.

“What? It was a compliment!” Noya says, but one look at Daichi’s face and he changes subject for good.

 

They leave soon after, the inside of their mouths bitter and sweet with the taste of wine.

Tanaka and Nishinoya have their arms around Ennoshita to keep him from falling nose-first on the asphalt, and the guy is still talking about his boyfriend, whose name he hasn’t mentioned once the whole night.

Well, always better than Civil Procedure. Daichi can count this as a victory.

A cab passes them by and Daichi waves at it to stop. It keeps going, but right behind it comes another one, that mercifully stops a few meters ahead of them. The driver waves at them to get in through the window and they hurry toward it. Hurry as much as they can, carrying a pretty much dead weight behind.

“Do you have enough money for the ride?” Daichi asks Nishinoya, the more coherent of the bunch.

Nishinoya pats his pockets, then Tanaka’s, and nods.

“Wait, you’re not coming with us, Daichi-san?” Tanaka asks and gently gets Ennoshita inside the cab, careful not to have him bump his head on the roof.

“No, no, I think I’m just going to-”

Reflections of quicksilver catch the corner of his eye and the words die in his throat.

He stops, and the whole world stops with him, to stare at the lonely figure sitting on a bench and reading under the golden light of a lamppost. Silver hair a fiery halo around his head.

_Suga..._

“Daichi-san?”

Tanaka calls him and Daichi averts his eyes, but only for a second, only for the time it takes to say goodbye.

“I’m going to take a walk,” he finishes.

“Alright? Goodbye, Daichi-san.”

“Bye,” he intones, already a thousand miles away.

Daichi crosses the road, barely registering the cars moving past him, and jogs to the bench to stand in front of Suga.

“Mind if I sit here?” he asks, with all the carelessness he can muster when his heart is beating so fast.

Suga looks up and even through thick-rimmed glasses his eyes are shining of a light of their own. Gold and copper. His lips part in a surprised ‘o’ but it’s brief, because as soon as his gaze locks with Daichi’s they open in a smile, one that Daichi has never seen. Or maybe, he’s simply never noticed.

Happy, yes, but shy. Small, blinding. The symmetric dimples on his cheeks and the small, lonely one in the left corner of his mouth all on display.

He scoots over a little and closes his book, a finger between the pages.

“Of course not,” he says, almost sing-songs.

So Daichi sits, close enough that their shoulders are brushing, and grins.

To the passersby they are just two men who didn’t expect to find each other here. But in truth, they didn’t expect to find each other at all.


	12. Take me somewhere nice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just two men, being themselves. Maybe, possibly, for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The * signals the POV switch.

For a moment they don’t speak.

The thin curve of the moon appears behind the trees to stand right above Suga, Daichi could touch it if he reached out. He could, if only he were able to look anywhere else.

_Today of all days…_

Daichi looks at the man before him and smiles.

“Hi,” he says, and Suga laughs.

“Hi.”                                     

“What are you doing here?”

Suga makes a show of raising his eyebrow. “Here being this bench? This city? Or the universe in general?”

_The_ _universe_ _in_ _general_ , Daichi thinks to himself. _Give me another reason to believe you are not quite real._

He gestures to the road, the cars rushing by, the small park behind them. “I thought this was _my_ prowling area…”

Suga shrugs and now he’s shy again, looks down on his lap and his eyelashes cast long shadows across his cheekbones. “I was here to, um, see a friend, you know? When I left I walked around a little and found myself here.”

Today of all days.

Except…

“That’s bullshit.”

Suga turns to face him again, so fast he probably just gave himself a whiplash, and a blush rises to his cheeks.

Daichi puts his arm on the back of the bench, his knuckles skim across the skin of Suga’s neck and he sees Suga shiver. Goosebumps stand out under the unforgiving light of the lamppost, the tender one of the moon.

Daichi closes his hand in a fist.

“Well?” he insists, picks on the white lie before him to avoid his own, coming slowly to the surface.

Suga bites his lip, but under Daichi’s stare he caves. “Alright! Alright, but it’s stupid…”

A shrug of shoulders, nervous fingers fidgeting with the fabric of his pants. “I was already at the train station before I realized I had no reason to come by today, force of habit I guess.”

“The train was there and I just took it, I’m not really sure why. The walking around part is true though, I don’t even know which street this is…”

He misses them.

Daichi should have realized it before. He’s been doing his damned best to avoid his home, even a second of loneliness that would force him to think about the deafening quiet waiting for him there, and Suga took the train just to feel a little closer to them.

They miss them.

Daichi’s fingers uncurl and stretch till his thumb is brushing Suga’s shoulder blade.

Slowly, as though afraid to spook him – or maybe himself – Suga leans back on the bench and now it’s his nape Daichi is touching. He can feel the shape of a mole – _that_ mole - on the back of his hand.

The tips of Suga’s hair are tickling the inside of his wrist, his pulse point.

The blood in his veins is thrumming, so loud he’s sure Suga can hear it.

God, what the hell is the matter with him today?

He spent the night with Mai, he woke up with her, to her, but it was never…

Not even with Yurika, he’s never responded to such small things.

Suga licks his lips and Daichi averts his eyes, stares at a small dog across the street, being walked by its just as small owner.

“But hey,” Suga croaks, “at least I brought along some hot company…”

He’s trying to joke, lighten the stuffy atmosphere that is now surrounding them but at his words Daichi freezes.

_Hot company?_

Suga starts and Daichi realizes that yes, he might have said that out loud, possibly in a higher-pitched voice than it’s flattering.

“No! No, I meant…” Suga gestures frantically at the book on his lap, a frenzied look on his face.

“I meant the book. French poetry!” he all but wheezes and almost throws it in Daichi’s face in his impetus, in his haste to clear this all up.

Daichi blinks at the worn-out cover two inches away from his nose, the title almost completely erased, smudged by time. He nods. His heart settles with the thought that no, Suga didn’t bring someone along, see: the guy he had a date with yesterday night.

It would have been awkward if he had. It would have meant Daichi had just interrupted his date, it would have meant that Daichi had to leave.Would Suga have asked him to leave?

Doesn’t matter, he doesn’t need to because Suga meant french poets, a ratty book written by men who have been dead for at least a century.

That’s…a relief.

Daichi takes the book in his hands and feels the roughness of pasteboard beneath the pads of his fingers, the frayed edges of it. “Which one were you reading?” he asks, only to realize that by taking the book for himself he made Suga lose the mark.

But Suga just takes the book back and after a quick browse stops on a yellow page, identical to the rest of them, and stops to read the curves and signs of a language that is as incomprehensible to Daichi as quantum physics but sounds more beautiful than any song he’s ever heard.

But maybe, that has more to do with who is reading.

“Je vous rêve de loin, et, de près, c’est pareil. Mais toujours vous restez précise, sans réplique,”  the words flow from his lips, the crisp running of a stream, “sous mes tranquilles yeux vous devenez musique, comme par le regard, je vous vois par l’oreille…”

Then it all stops and Suga sucks in a breath, closes the book with a sharp snap and trembling fingers. Time begins again to pass.

“That’s it,” Suga says, “It’s a short poem.”

Daichi nods, but doesn’t believe it. “It sounded nice.”

“Nicer than it actually is,” Suga comments and Daichi doesn’t question it.

“What’s it about?”

A twitch in Suga’s jaw. “Love and stuff…”

Even though the shaking in his voice is so obvious, the way he just dismisses the whole thing is too funny for Daichi to resist a snort.

“ _Love_ and stuff,” he ehoes, just as dismissive, “I think I’m familiar with that concept.”

Sudden, the punch comes. Hits Daichi right in the side, not too strong but so unexpected it takes all the air from his lungs.

“Shut up!” Suga cries, a pout on his lips like a kid who was denied candy by his parents.

And just as sudden, even though his side kind of stings, Daichi laughs. So loud an old lady walking past their bench starts and almost drops her cane. When she throws a smatter of curses their way and leaves with a surprising spring in her steps, probably brought on by her indignation, Suga joins too.

They laugh until their abs hurt and their cheeks are sore and there are tears streaming down their faces. All over what? Absolutely nothing.

“What _was_ that?” Daichi asks once he’s regained some composure, which is admittedly not a lot.

“You’re asking me? You started laughing first!”

“Yeah, well, you punched me!”

“So what? You can’t take it?”

Daichi fixes his tie and throws Suga a contemplating look. “Oh I can, I could take you in my sleep-”

“Hey!”

“But as a general rule I don’t beat up four-eyes.”

Suga blinks at him then brings his hands to his face, to the rim of his glasses. “Oh God, I forgot I had them!”

He takes them off in a quick gesture and Daichi notices the bridge of his nose is a little red, in the spot where his glasses were resting. It’s…adorable, really.

“They are reading glasses, years of studying the minuscule translation notes at the bottom of the pages really messed me up,” Suga is saying, searching for the box in the mess of books and notebooks and – _is that a unicorn plushie?_ – that is his bag.

“They don’t, um, they don’t look bad,” Daichi manages to say just as Suga is putting them away.

He’s gifted a small smile for his troubles, then silence falls again.

A car honks, the driver throws curses at a careless guy who’d tried to cross the street without paying attention. The guy flips him off. A dog barks in the darkness of taller buildings, maybe set off by the honking.

Daichi sighs and hears Suga do the same.

They look at each other. Daichi stares into golden-copper eyes, more copper than gold now, and finally says it.

“I don’t want to go home.”

He cringes at how childish it sounds but Suga’s eyes soften, turn the color of caramel. “Then don’t, not yet.”

His hand grips the cuff of Daichi’s shirt and tugs, playful, urgent. “There’s a nice playground near here. I stumbled upon it earlier, during my mindless wandering…”

“So?”

“So, it’s late for children to still be there. I’m sure we can score two seats on the swings!”

Daichi is already on his feet and dragging a laughing Suga along, even though _he_ ’s the one who doesn’t know the way.

 

Just like Suga had predicted, the playground is empty when they get there. A little spooky as well, quiet but for the squeaking of the swings moved by the light breeze rising.

Playgrounds are not meant to be quiet places.

“See, I told you they’d be empty!”

Thankfully there’s Suga to make up for it.

He lets go of Daichi’s cuff – _have they really been walking like this the entire time?_ -  and sprints down the pathway to get there first, triumphant laughter erupting from him as he sits on the leather strap.

Daichi shakes his head at the sight but follows suit, lets himself fall on the swing next to Suga’s and starts moving. First still with the ball of his foot firmly planted on the ground, a small back and forth, then he starts pushing with his arms, his torso, his head.

And then he’s flying.

The air strokes his face, toys with his hair and Daichi is laughing, his cheeks cold and achy with it.

“I haven’t done this in so long!” he tells Suga, who’s laughing too, moving so fast he’s just a blur of silver and blue.

“What?” Suga asks, almost yells, and the tips of his feet seem to touch the higher branches of the pine trees all around them.

“I said I haven’t done this in so long!” Daichi repeats and propels himself forward with a well-timed thrust of his torso, straightens his legs to speed up his fall.

His and Suga’s feet reach the top together and while they are starting to descend – _already_   - Suga reaches out to nudge Daichi’s foot with his.

“You do know there’s one just outside your garden, right? And that it belongs to you?”

“Well technically it belongs to Ayame,” Daichi half-shouts at him, above the rush, “but I don’t know, I never even thought of getting on there myself!”

Suga turns to look at him, and now that Daichi is matching his speed he can see him more clearly. He can see the upturned curve of his mouth, his bangs flying to cover his eyes and sticking to his lips.

“You forgot how fun it is, didn’t you?” he asks, one moment from above, the second later behind Daichi.

“Maybe,” Daichi limits himself to say and pushes, aims even higher.

_I forgot many things_ , he can’t bring himself to say. Not quite yet.

He forgot how to live his own life, he forgot to take into account what he wants and not just what he needs or what he should want. He forgot how to love someone, how to fall in love.

He forgot the way your stomach flips when you’re a millimeter away from the top and the swing forces you back down.

“They were my favourites when I was a kid,” he admits instead, and his mind goes back to humid summers in Miyagi, competing to see who could go higher. Jumping down while the swing was still moving, and coming home with skinned knees.

“This one time me and my friend Ikejiri tried to do both at the same time,” he recalls, and tells Suga with a smile, puts his foot down to stop his race and sees Suga do the same to listen, “we reached so high the ground seemed miles away and we jumped right at the tallest spot. For a moment I swear we were flying but really the ground was two seconds away, and unforgiving. We both ended up with matching casts on our legs!”

“Oh no!” Suga coos, he actually coos. Then his eyes light up again and his lips twist into a smirk. “And you never tried since?”

“Well, n- oh no!” Daichi shakes his head as realization dawns on him. “Didn’t you listen to the story? Specifically, to how it ended?”

Suga waves his hand around, waves his concern away. “Children’s bones are much more fragile and besides I didn’t mean we do that from the tallest spot we can reach, let’s just…do that. Jump.”

_Yes._

“You want to jump?”

“Yes! Come on, Jack!”

“Jack? Who the hell is Jack?”

Suga huffs and stomps his foot on the ground. “Titanic! Jack and Rose from Titanic! You jump, I jump? Remember?”

“No, not really.”

Suga huffs again, his cheeks puffed with annoyance. “Just do it, alright?”

Daichi could keep arguing, say he doesn’t really want to do it, comment on how bossy Suga is being, but really he’s been itching to just do it. For a long a time.

So he starts swinging again, back and forth, first on the ball of his foot, then fast, faster until the air is brushing his hair again. Suga cries out to wait for him and moves, at Daichi’s rhythm.

They don’t push as hard as before, they don’t reach that high, the top branches of the trees, but they look at the sky like it’s within their reach.

“Now?” Suga asks.

“Not yet!” Daichi yells back, and closes into himself to avoid going faster.

“Alright, on the count of three,” he says, when he and Suga are finally moving in sync, perfectly aligned.

“One!”

Daichi blinks at a star winking right at him.

“Two!”

He’s back down, only grass and ground before him.

“Three!” he screams, with all the voice he has.

Blue everywhere, all blue but for the silver of the moon, and he jumps down the swing, lets the chains go, leaves them behind as he floats.

For a moment he swears he’s flying. The air stills all around him, the sky is here for him to touch, and his feet are free from the ground forcing them still.

Then gravity pulls him down again, like always, and all that’s left of his glory is a dull pain in his ankles, earth on his slacks, and laughter.

Suga lands next to him with a soft thud and together they lie back on the dusty ground, bodies shaken with laughter.

“Oh my God!”

“Is your stomach filled with butterflies too?”

“I don’t think I have a stomach anymore!”

Their clothes are getting dirty, their hair is getting dirty. Daichi doesn’t care.

He opens his eyes and finds the moon right before him, he turns to see it reflected in Suga’s.

“So…” Suga says, voice a little rough from their bout of hilarity.

“So?”

“Did it feel like you were flying?”

Daichi looks away.

“No, it felt like I was falling.”

Suga snorts out a laugh and Daichi grins at the universe staring down on them.

 

They try the seesaw next.

Suga points at it while he’s still carding his fingers through his hair to brush away the dust. “Are you sure I don’t have ants on my head?” he asks for the sixth time.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Daichi sighs and sits on one end of the board. “At least your hair is light, with mine even if I had them you wouldn’t be able to notice.”

Suga thinks about it for a second, then nods. “That is true,” he agrees and sits on the other side, “first perk I find to having old man hair.”

“You’re welcome.”

Suga props his weight on his legs and pushes upward. He’s barely made it to the top that he’s already going down. “How much do you weight, Daichi-san?” he asks, indignant and wide-eyed.

Daichi bristles. “It’s not my fault you don’t have strength in your legs!”

“Hey, I played volleyball for years, I have plenty of strength. It’s you, you weigh a ton!”

“It’s all muscles!” Daichi almost screams it, his face red with resentment.

There’s a small pause, then Suga whispers, breathy and barely audible “Don’t I know it…”

Daichi’s seat touches the ground with a loud clangor and he jumps. The heat spreading on his cheeks now has very little to do with anger.

So Suga…Suga’d noticed, that day in the kitchen. Well, of course, Daichi had been standing shirtless before him for a good ten minutes but still, he hadn’t thought Suga might actually be looking. Noticing.

But he had. Apparently he’d noticed.

A weird energy explodes within Daichi and he pushes himself up, maybe a little too hard. Suga almost topples over when his seat hits the ground.

“Sorry!” Daichi calls from above.

“It’s alright. Man, I’ve always hated the seesaw!” Suga rolls down and on the grass and waits for Daichi to join him.

“Then why did you propose we try it?”

“I thought maybe I’d judged it too harshly…”

Daichi bites his lip to keep himself from laughing in the guy’s face.

_You can’t possibly be real…_

“Suga it’s a seesaw, not a colleague you fought with on your first day of work.”

Suga shrugs. “It’s the first thing I saw,” then softly, “you’re not the only one who doesn’t want to go home quite yet…”

Daichi’s heart does a sudden, jerky movement inside his chest, that seems to echo in his ribs, all the way down his toes.

“I liked the story you told me earlier, about the swing,” Suga continues, still in a whisper, “I thought maybe we could…get to know each other better.”

“You do that with all your employers?” Daichi says, and as soon as the words stumble out of his stupid mouth he wants to punch himself in the face.

Suga tenses beside him. “No, no, you’re right.”

He makes to stand but Daichi stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

“What is it?”

_Don’t leave._

His fingers press slightly on delicate bones. He racks his brain to come up with something to say that won’t result quite as needy, quite as dumb.

“W-what’s your favourite color?” is what he comes up with in the end.

He winces, because _way to not sound dumb, Daichi_ but the body beaneath his palm starts shaking and he’s rewarded with another one of Suga’s smiles.

“My favourite color? Really?”

“It’s as good a question as any!”

“If you say so.”

He stays.

Suga looks up and a crease appears between his brows. Stupid question or not, he’s really thinking about his answer.

“I guess…” he says after a couple of minutes of contemplation, “I like pretty much every shade of lavender, baby blue, and purple. Also yellow. Yellow makes me happy, as long as it’s not too bright and…glowy?”

“I said favourite color. Singular.” Daichi teases and watches Suga roll his eyes to the sky.

“Alright then, lavender.”

“But which shade of lavender?”

“Oh come on!” Suga pushes Daichi’s shoulder, so hard Daichi almost falls on his side by the grass.

“What about you then? What’s _your_ favourite color?”

Daichi opens his mouth to answer but can’t even make a sound before Suga stops him. “And please don’t tell me it’s orange. Or black.”

Daichi reaches out and pinches Suga’s side. Suga yelps.

“I was going to say blue, thank you very much.”

“So sorry for having misjudged you, it’s just that…the image of that car you designed yesterday on Need for Speed still haunts me.”

“Hey, it wasn’t that bad!”

Suga makes a sound that’s somewhere between a snort and a derisive chuckle. “Oh come on, captain. You may as well have painted a portrait of the Small Giant on the roof!”

It’s weirdly attractive, hearing Suga call him that…

Daichi willfully ignores the warmth spreading low in his stomach and clears his throat. “As if. My team and I brought Karasuno to Nationals long before the Small Giant did!” he says and still he can feel the way the court had seemed to burn under his feet, in that last match against Shiratorizawa, even then the reigning champion.

“That’s right,” Suga murmurs and when Daichi turns to look at him again his eyes have gone soft with wistfulness. “I’d forgotten that…wait a second!”

“You…you went to Nationals? With Karasuno?”

“Yes, I just said…”

“T-then you must have been on the team with Ukai-san!”

Ukai-san? _Ukai-san?_

_This little shit…_

A vein in Daichi’s temple gives an irritated throb and he almost chokes on his indignation. “Ukai- just how old do you think I am!”

Suga blinks at him, then, without any warning, flicks him on the forehead. “I meant Ukai Keishin, you doofus! Not his grandfather!”

“Oh…Still, there was no reason to flick me!”

“Whatever, but you were, weren’t you?”

Daichi nods, still rubbing his thumb on the spot Suga hit him. “Yeah, he was my vice captain. Decent player when he didn’t let his temper cloud his judgement.”

Suga scoots to sit closer to him and Daichi has to lean closer still to hear his next question. “And how, um, how was he?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, did he, um. Did he already have his ears pierced? Dyed his hair and…and stuff?”

Suga is blushing now, and playing with the hem of his shirt.

Realization dawns on Daichi and his stomach drops to his feet. He has no idea why.

“You had a crush on him…” Daichi whispers back, and his voice drops even further on the word ‘crush’.

This is just…unbelievable.

_Ukai Keishin, seriously?_

“Ukai Keishin, seriously?”

“Hey, I don’t know what he looked like when you knew him but he’s…quite the handsome man now.” Suga is fastly turning the color of lobster. “And he was…he was a good coach, to me.”

“He was?”

Judging by the dark look Suga is throwing his way Daichi didn’t quite manage to hide his surprise just now.

“He was, alright? He only stepped in when I was in my third year, after his grandfather got sick, you know? But he was great, I mean, we did go to Nationals thanks to him…”

“You went to Nationals as well?”

“Yeah,” again that smile, as though he’s reliving the greatest days of his life right in this moment, just by talking about them, “we were a good team, not a perfect team by any means, but we were solid and we all really came together under his leadership. And thanks to some extraordinary first years…”

“You’re referring to Kageyama Tobio, right?”

Suga turns toward him with wide, luminous eyes. “So you know about that too?”

“Yeah…”

A chuckle, too dry, too strained to be sincere. “Nishinoya told me you knew I’d gone to Karasuno too, the day of the party, but I couldn’t manage to ask him how you got that information…”

“We have a friend in common, kind of…”

And Daichi tells him about the conversation with Hinata, sees the line of Suga’s lips turn hard, his shoulders drop.

“Hinata-kun, then. But I don’t think I ever mentioned it to him…”

“Oh, he definitely found out from Kageyama.”

“Kageyama? What does Kageyama have to do with Hinata-kun?”

“They are together. Well, not really, as they are too in denial to admit it but-”

“Oh shit!” Suga hisses and slams his fist to the ground, with so much force a cloud of smoky earth rises. His eyes squeeze shut and for a moment he looks almost in pain. “Oh, not this again…”

“Hey…”

Daichi covers Suga’s hand with his own, to stop him from hurting himself further. Their fingers entwine, without really meaning to, and it’s startling, how cold Suga’s fingertips are, compared to the lovely warmth of his palm. Bad circulation, probably.

“It’s alright, I mean I don’t really get why you wanted to keep a thing like that secret in the first place but we don’t need to talk about it…”

Suga shakes his head but he squeezes Daichi’s hand all the same. “That’s not, that’s not why I got mad. Just private matters that are also not my private matters…”

“Oh, alright?”

Silence, and with a last squeeze Daichi lets Suga go.

“Then why didn’t you mention it before, the Karasuno thing?”

Suga shrugs.

“I mean, you went to Nationals. Mustn’t have been too bad…”

Suga leans back, till he’s resting on his forearms, eyes to the stars. “It wasn’t bad, indeed.”

“It wasn’t bad, and that’s why it hurts, remembering it.”

Daichi mirrors his position and waits, his eyes never leaving Suga’s face.

“You know, to everyone who asks I say I chose Meiji for its great linguistics program, and that’s true but it’s also…it’s not the whole story.”

“It used to be a real volleyball powerhouse once,” Daichi says as he understands, as the picture becomes a little clearer.

A nod. “Yeah. I thought I could at least try. After three years on the bench, first as the junior setter not good enough to take the position from his senpai then as the third year setter who wasn’t good enough to carry his team to victory, especially not when there was a genius first year right there who could, I thought I could take it.”

“I thought I’d be fine with just practicing with the others and watching official matches from the sideline…”

“But?” Daichi dreads what Suga is about to say. He hates the bitter look on Suga’s face.

Hates whoever put it there.

“But I wasn’t needed, not even for that. So it stings, it really fucking stings to think about it all, about how stupid I was, fooling myself I could be good enough for a great university team when I hadn’t been even in a high school team comprised of twelve people.”

Suga’s voice stays steady throughout his whole speech, soft but steady. Strong even in the face of disappointment.

_There is so much more to you, than kind smiles and weird quirks._

It’s something Daichi has always known, but he’s never been this close to take a glimpse of that core.

At your pace, Suga, he wants to say. I’ll wait till you are ready.

So Daichi stands and brushes the dust off his pants. He turns to face Suga and reaches out, without a word.

Suga stares at him, at his outstretched hand, and takes it.

There’s a guarded look in his eyes, as though he’s dreading what Daichi might say next. Dreading sympathy and set phrases, meaningless clichès.

Daichi pulls him up – with a little too ease – and leads him outside the playground.

“There’s an ice-cream parlor a couple of blocks away,” he says, pats his pockets for money. “It’s run by an italian family, so you know it’s quality.”

Suga cocks his head to the side and studies him for a moment, then his expression opens, not quite in a smile but it’s close. “Sounds good.”

Daichi lets out the breath he was holding and keeps walking, with Suga in tow.

“It’s called gelato when it’s italian,” Suga adds when they are finally out in the street.

“You like to act the ‘know-it-all’ don’t you?”

Suga doesn’t answer, just moves in closer to avoid a couple walking hand in hand in the middle of the sidewalk, and fixes the bag on his shoulder.

 

*

 

“Favourite animal?”

“Oooh, that’s hard. I mean, I know I should say ‘cat’ for loyalty toward Onyx…”

“Of course.”

“But I really like artic foxes. And baby seals, when they are all fluffy, you know? And also flying squirrels, seahorses…”

“Again, Suga, I only asked for one.”

Suga shakes his head but at last, before Daichi-san’s stern look, he concedes “Arctic foxes…”

He’s already second-guessing his choice.

Damn Daichi-san for always asking such hard questions…

“Same to you, captain.”

“I was never your captain.”

“Technicalities, now answer!”

Daichi-san doesn’t even think about it, he just throws him a grin and says “Dogs.”

Suga smiles back. He can’t say he wasn’t expecting it, in fact he can’t think of another answer Daichi-san might have given him, but he’s still surprised by the…predictability, the almost childish expression of joy now lighting up Daichi-san’s face.

“I love dogs,” Daichi-san is _gushing_ , that’s precious, “they are generous, loyal, reliable…”

It fits so well with the person Suga is coming to know.

“Kind of like you…”

It escapes him.

Suga winces at the slightly breathy quality of his voice but as Daichi-san turns toward him, eyes wide and the beginning of a blush already spreading around his ears, he doesn’t even consider taking it back.

“Thanks,” Daichi-san mumbles, in that gruff way he gets sometimes, when he’s embarrassed.

“No problem.”

It’s true.

They walk in silence till a crossroad and once they step on the opposite side of the road it’s easy to see the flashy sign of the gelateria even a block away.

Unconsciously, they quicken their pace.

There are more people walking this sidewalk, almost all going in the opposite direction as them. Suga presses closer to Daichi-san’s body to avoid getting checked by a group of large college boys passing by, but just as Daichi-san’s hand moves to rest on his shoulder – Suga’s body tenses in the wait of that touch – a tall, blond guy almost runs Suga over and makes his breath catch in his chest.

“Hey!” both he and Daichi-san call in unison.

Suga massages his sternum, where the guy’s elbow took him.

The guy just blinks at them, the drowsiness of his movements and the slack line of his jaw tell Suga he’s more than a little inebriated. Hammered might be a more accurate choice of word.

Thankfully he seems to be just that, drunk, and not a dangerous combination of drunk and easily angered because he immediately raises his hands in a pacifying gesture and apologizes, his words a rapid slur almost impossible to make out.

Sadly, ‘almost’ is the key word here.

“Sorry, Eärwen, my sweet Sea Maiden…”

Oh no…

Suga fidgets with the strap of his bag to hide the color spreading high on his cheeks.

He can’t believe it. It’s been five years, how are there people who still remember that day, his costume, among the thousand others there…

The guy bows, clumsy, and nearly loses his balance. He leaves then, still a  wild-eyed look on his face as he stares and stares at Suga, nearly walks into someone else not to avert his gaze.

“What was that?” Daichi-san asks, blinking stupidly at the spot the guy had been occupying.

Suga gulps down his embarrassment, maybe with a little luck Daichi-san will just dismiss the guy’s words as a drunk’s ramblings and forget all about it, and takes the man by the tie to get him to move. He was promised ice-cream minutes ago and it unnerves him, that he still hasn’t gotten any.

“Woah there, Suga!”

Daichi-san tries to pry Suga’s fingers open. Doesn’t succeed.

“Gelato!” is all Suga says.

A man on a mission, he doesn’t stop till they are outside the ice-cream parlour and at the sight of golden, perfectly cylindrical cones, of displays full to the tip with over two dozens of varieties of creamy, shiny, silky gelato, a wave of emotion overwhelms Suga and he brings the tip of Daichi-san’s tie to his face to dab his tears.

“It’s all so beautiful,” he whispers, elation personified.

Daichi-san – gently – slaps his hand away and walks inside. He’s immediately greeted by an incredibly tiny, curved old lady with surprisingly thick arms.

“Dai-chee!” she coos, walks around the counter and takes Daichi-san’s hands in hers.

When Daichi-san leans down to kiss her, she blushes like a school girl with her long-time crush.

But really, Suga is in no position to blame her. If Daichi-san were to kiss him, even a chaste one on the cheek, he’s sure he’d lose one or two marbles.

Alright, alright. He’d lose _all_ his marbles…

“I brought a friend with me today, Tina,” Daichi-san is telling the woman, shoulders still a little hunched so he can look her in the eyes, “I hope you don’t mind…”

“Mind? No, no, no. Dai-chee’s friends are our friends,” she says with a smile, and moves closer, toward the door, to get a better look at Suga. She takes his face in her hands and does exactly that: look, from every angle.

Despite the shock of the touch, and of her callouses against his cheeks, Suga feels himself relax right away. The eyes staring into his are nothing but gentle.

“Hello, Mrs. Tina,” he says and she breaks into a smile that turns her face into a map, lines of laughter near her mouth and eyes, of a life that was never easy but also never sad.

“Hello, dear,” she says back and pats his cheek tenderly, twice, before finally letting him go.

“I like him,” she proclaims and even gives Daichi-san a proud nod, as if to congratulate him for his taste in…friends, his taste in friends.

Daichi-san snorts. “You don’t even know his name!”

Tina steps behind the counter again and at Daichi’s words asks “What’s your name, pretty?”

Pretty.

Suga gives Daichi-san a smug smile, to which Daichi-san rolls his eyes. “Suga.”

“I like Suga” Mrs. Tina tells Daichi-san, in the same matter-of-fact tone as before. “Now tell me, Suga, how do you want your gelato?”

And suddenly, Suga is six again.

He rocks on the ball of his feet, hands joined behind his back like every time his father used to ask him if he wanted something from the store and he always did but got too embarrassed to tell. His father always knew though, and always somehow managed to guess exactly what Suga wanted.

Suga takes a look at the – beautiful, beautiful – display and knows too.

“Pistachio and hazelnut,” he tells Mrs. Tina. His favourite flavor and his father’s.

“Excellent choice, caro. Now I like you even more.”

Suga beams at her, and then beams _harder_ when she adds a nice swirl of whipped cream on top and a sprinkle of chocolate drops.

“Here you go, dear.”

“The usual for me,” Daichi-san says, and of course Daichi-san would be the kind of man who has a ‘usual’ even at an ice-cream parlor that offers over 20 possible flavors.

Mrs. Tina winks at him and scoops two huge balls of gelato with practiced movements.

Chocolate and Stracciatella. A classic. No whipped cream for him but Mrs. Tina makes sure to fit a small tempered chocolate cone on top as a treat.

“Giuseppe texted to tell me you went to have dinner at the restaurant,” she says and fixes Daichi-san with a knowing look, “treated yourself twice today…”

The question is clear even left unsaid.

What’s wrong?

Daichi-san shrugs but his expression has darkened, if only just a little. “The kids are with Yurika today.”

Mrs. Tina nods, takes the money Daichi hands her, then starts filling a styrofoam box with Daichi-san’s favourite flavors. “You take this home, boy,” she tells him, orders him when Daichi-san tries to protest.

With a sigh he does and leans over the counter to kiss Tina’s cheek.

They don’t linger, the shop is too small for that and a group of high school kids crowds it soon after, making it impossible for Tina to stop for conversation.

Still she blows Suga a kiss as they leave and makes him promise to come back when he can. Not a hard promise to keep at all, even if the gelato weren’t as delicious as it is, Mrs. Tina herself would be a good enough reason to visit.

“She is a lovely woman,” Suga comments between soft hums of pleasure. With every lick this gelato keeps getting better and better. He feels for all the passersby walking past him, he really does, it’s like they walked on the set of a porno movie by mistake. The sounds are pretty much the same.

He feels for them, but it’s not like he can help it. The fresh taste of pistachio explodes on his tongue and he moans even louder.

A businessman still in his work clothes almost trips on his feet and stares at him with wide, scandalized eyes.

_Oh please, as if you don’t have a stash hidden in the back of your closet…_

Next to him Daichi-san snickers. “You sure are vocal, Suga.”

_Oh, you have no idea…_

If only Daichi-san wanted to see for himself just how vocal Suga can get-

Alright, change of mental topic.

He clears his throat and focuses on the lampposts, the people on the sidewalk, the road before them.

“How, um, how long have you known her?” he asks and throws a side-long glance at Daichi-san, who is happily chewing on his chocolate cone.

“Oh, um, about five years,” Daichi says and licks some stracciatella off his lips, “I started coming when Ayame was little. She and Kaede only want to eat ice-crem there, Mrs. Tina always sneaks in extra cream and treats for them.”

“They are smart kids. And she also mentioned a restaurant, didn’t she?”

“Yes, yes. It’s an Italian restaurant, of course. Right across the street where we met earlier.”

Suga nods. He’d noticed the sign and had been more than tempted to get in himself, but he hadn’t taken enough money with him this afternoon so he’d just grabbed a quick sandwhich from a nearby supermarket and ate it there on the bench. Not really knowing where else to go, he’d thought it better to stay put for a while. Get some of his reading done.

But maybe, in a way, it had been fate that’d convinced him to stay, wait, without knowing, for Daichi-san to _see_ him.

If only he were sentimental enough to believe that…

Daichi-san takes another quick lick of his gelato and continues. “Her uncle opened it back in the early ‘900. Hers is a family of restaurateurs, you know? In fact Tina was working at _her_ _father_ ’s restaurant back in Napoli when she met the man who would become her husband. He was a Japanese businessman in Italy to close a deal. As soon as they got married she decided to follow him back here and started working for her uncle.”

Ice-cream drips down Suga’s fingers as he stops to listen, frozen in time.

“Then about a decade ago she and her husband opened the ice-cream parlor, which is Tina’s true love. She left her children and nephews to take care of the restaurant and dedicated all of her time to that place. She makes the gelato herself, without the help of mixers or beaters…”

“Wow, that’s…that’s amazing,” Suga’s voice cracks and he munches on the cone to hide it.

His heart is beating so slow it feels like it’s stopped altogether.

European woman marries Japanese businessman, follows him back to his country and they start a business together. It’s a story he’s heard before.

Only…only Mrs. Tina had stayed. She’d stayed, she had tried – and succeeded - to build a life here. Her children work only two blocks away, and they text to tell her the most trivial things.

They probably have dinner all together on Sundays, sitting at a long, heavy wooden table, an oval plate with roasted chicken and potatoes right in the middle and laughter all around.

The cone cracks under Suga’s grip and before it breaks Suga eats it in three big bites.

“You liked it, uh?” Daichi-san teases, like the tip of his cone is not the only thing left of his gelato.

Suga swallows the mouthful with difficulty and keeps walking. There’s a weird jitter in his fingertips, a tension in his shoulders, as though his body is preparing itself for a run.

If Daichi-san notices he’s started walking a little faster he doesn’t mention. Instead he eats the last of his cone and cocks his head in his direction. A thought has just occurred to him.

Suga tenses even more.

“Tina’s story must be pretty familiar to you, right? Ayame told me you are French from your mother’s side…”

Fuck.

He should have known this would happen. Sooner or later, Daichi-san was meant to ask. Everybody does.

“Yes, that is correct,” Suga says and shoves his hands in his pocket. They ball into fists around the fabric of his jeans.

“Must have been hard for your mother,” Daichi-san continues, unaware, eyes lost in the crowd, “leaving her home to follow your father. I don’t know if I could ever do that…”

Something tugs at Suga’s chest. It claws up his throat, stings and burns the inside of his cheeks. It’s only when he opens his mouth to answer – and say what, he’s not sure – that he realizes it’s laughter.

He laughs in Daichi-san’s face, laughs at strangers on the street, looking at him like he’s crazy. He laughs till his stomach hurts.

Hard. Sure it must have been hard for her. Suga is sure it was much harder, for her, leaving France, than it was leaving him.

Of course it was. Otherwise, she would have called. She would have written. She would have tried to keep in touch. At least with him, at least with her own son.

“Suga?”

A warm, gentle hand settles on his shoulder and at once the laughter stops.

Suga stands upright on the sidewalk and dabs at the tears streaming down his face. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and the hilarity still in his voice makes it crack.

“Is, is everything alright?” Daichi-san asks. Daichi-san, who is staring at him with honest, concerned eyes. Whose thumb is stroking circles in the hollow of his shoulder blade.

And Suga could lie, - yes, yes everything is fine - he could drop a line about his mother, agree that ‘’yeah, sure, it was hard on her’’ and then move on.

He does it so often, he does it with everyone who asks. When he was little he used to say his mom was gone, and then stay quiet. It wasn’t a lie, technically, but everyone always assumed she was dead and for his part he…he never corrected them.

In a way she was. To him, she was.

But tonight has been, Suga doesn’t know how to describe it. It feels like, ever since he met Daichi-san, ever since he met the kids, his life has stopped being just states of grey.

And tonight, tonight most of all every color seems twice as rich, twice as bright.

The dark blue of the sky. The rich brown of Daichi-san’s eyes in his. The white smudge of stracciatella on the corner of his mouth.

Suga sees it all and for once he doesn’t want to lie or run or hide.

The jitter in his fingertips stops. His heart picks up pace.

“My mother left us when I was four,” he says, he _says_ it, “so I have no idea if it was hard on her or not, moving here. I assume it was, but she sure never talked to me about it.”

He exhales, breathes out all the air collected in his lungs and knows, he’s sure he’s gotten just a little lighter. He’s standing just a little taller.

He said it, the thing only Tooru knows, and only because it was Suga’s father who told him. This time though, this time it was all Suga.

_Suga_ said it.

Daichi-san looks at him and his touch turns even gentler, a caress down his arm, till the fine bone of his wrist. Gentle, in contrast to his expression, that has turned darker than Suga has ever seen it.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright, Daichi-san.”

It is. It really is.

Suga gestures for Daichi-san to keep walking, they are standing in the middle of a busy street and in Tokyo that is never a wise move, and Daichi-san does, looks back almost frantically to make sure Suga is following.

Suga brushes their shoulders together.

“I shouldn’t have said…” Daichi-san is trying to say and his voice is strained, trembling with something that resembles anger.

“It’s alright, I’m actually kind of relieved…”

Daichi-san turns again toward him and Suga smiles. “I said it, it’s out in the world, finally.”

“I’m not really sure telling me qualifies as it being out in the world…” Daichi-san attempts to joke but again, the line of his jaw is too tight for a smile to grow on his face.

Suga wants to ease it with his fingertips. “Are you angry?” he asks instead.

“Yes.”

“With me?”

“No, of course not. I could never…”

The backs of their hands brush together and Suga clenches his own in a fist, to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid like let their fingers entwine. “With yourself, then? You shouldn’t be, you couldn’t have known…”

“I know, I know.”

And Daichi-san explodes. “But _fuck_ , if I could just meet your mother for a coffee, sit her down and tell her exactly what I think of her…”

He is almost growling, he spits the word ‘mother’ as if it offends him, simply having to use it in this context. To describe _her_.

“You are angry with…with my mother?”

“Of course I am. How could I not be after what she did to you?”

Daichi-san is looking into his eyes again, not with pity – that pity Tooru had tried so valiantly to hide – but with care. With anger, an anger that is not directed to him but is _for_ him. Suga, he’s…he’s never seen anyone be angry on his behalf, get furious just because somebody hurt him.

“Thank you,” he says. The only words he can come up with.

Daichi-san blinks at him and just like that the fight leaves him, he turns soft again. “For what?”

Suga shrugs and smiles again, slow.

Under the clear lights of the lampposts Daichi-san blushes.

 

They take the left at the next crossroads, and the buildings starts to become familiar. They are walking home. The night breeze blows, causing Suga to shiver.

“What was the worst date you ever had?” he asks, to Daichi-san, looking up at the sky.

But they are not quite there yet.

 

“So this guy tells me he’s my date’s boyfriend and when I look at my date he confesses, I kid you not, that this was all just a way to get back at his boyfriend for cancelling on him on their anniversary!”

Suga almost chokes on his own saliva. “No fucking way!”

He doesn’t know what shocked him the most, if finding out Daichi-san dates men too or that a guy would use a man as wonderful and attractive as Daichi-san only to spite his boyfriend, spend an evening with him and not realize it’d be better to dump the guy _for_ him instead.

“I swear it’s true. It was such despicable behavior I was almost more embarrassed for them than I was for myself…”

“I’m kind of hoping this story ends with you pouring your drink on your date’s head, but I know you are too classy for that.”

Daichi-san chuckles, a pleased expression on his face. “Well, I would be lying if I said it didn’t cross my mind.”

“Same question to you, Suga: worst date you ever had.”

This time Suga is prepared, he doesn’t have any doubts on which answer to give. He cracks his knuckles and starts. “It was with this guy I met at a fantasy convention-”

“You go to that sort of stuff?”

Suga throws Daichi-san a withering glare that has the man fidgeting, then continues. “My friend Tooru insisted I come along, alright? He’s really into Star Trek and the likes…”

_And I definitely don’t join him in his marathons. Not ever._

“I remember Taka, my other roommate, fixed me a beautiful, white dress so I could go as Galadriel,” at Daichi-san’s blank look he adds “an elf from Lord of the Rings, the one played by Cate Blanchett?”

Daichi-san nods but his eyes are still unfocused. He has no clue what SSuga is talking about…

“Anyway, I went there, all dolled up, with my wig and my pretty dress and pointy, silicone ears and this guy starts hitting on me. Kind of shamelessly, really, but I’d just moved to the city and he was cute so I said to myself ‘why not?’”

“Except once we are alone at this nice coffee place the first thing the creep asks me is: do you have moles everywhere?”

“Oh my God…”

“I know! And I try to laugh it off, keep our conversation PG but everything I say is turned into a sleazy innuendo. One moment he tells me how pretty my eyes are, and the next he ruins everything by adding that my ass is even better!”

If only Suga weren’t quite so lost in memories, he’d surely notice the way Daichi freezes, the guilty blush that spreads over his cheeks and down his collar.

Alas, he doesn’t.

“I endure like a brave little soldier for a good 45 minutes, then, when I comment on the beautiful baguettes exposed by the bakery nearby and he tells me he has a much nicer baguette he can show me I just throw some money on the table and leave.”

“Wow that is…even worse than my story,” Daichi-san sounds a little impressed even.

“Needless to say it put me off dating for a couple of months. But hey, at least I got to have a little satisfaction to myself.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mmm, just before I left I leaned close to him and whispered right in his ear ‘I do have moles everywhere, but sadly for you you’re never going to see them’.”

Daichi-san gapes at him like a fish in the tank for a moment, redder than ever, then he throws his head back and laughs that deep, rich laughter of his.

“That _is_ a good comeback. Excellent, really.”

Suga makes to bow in thanks.

“Some people really don’t know how to behave…” Daichi-san adds, still a little wide-eyed in shock. “I mean like conducting themselves around people. I could understand being nervous, but that wasn’t about that at all. Some people just don’t know how to act when they’re on a date.”

Suga nods in agreement and swiftly they make their way past Kaede’s kindergarten.

The brisk breeze has turned into quite the nasty wind, it insinuates itself easily beneath the thin cotton of Suga’s shirt. He shivers again, worse than before, and crosses his arms over his chest to retrieve some warmth.

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right, Daichi-san…”

There’s a tender rustling of fabric beside him and suddenly he’s warm again, from tip to toes. Cocooned in Daichi-san’s jacket.

“What, um…” he can’t bring himself to say anything else. His heart is expanding in his chest, so much so that it’s taking up all the space inside him, squeezing his lungs to the sides and forcing every breath out of him.

Daichi-san just shrugs and rubs the back of his neck. He’s red to the tips of his ears. “You looked cold,” he explains, then he too falls quiet.

The rest of the way to Daichi-san’s house, they spend it all in silence. It’s only by the front gate that Daichi-san speaks again.

“Let me drive you home.”

The wind blows again.

Suga whispers above it.

“Alright.”

 

As crowded as the streets were, the roads are empty.

They fly on the asphalt, even though Daichi-san is being careful to drive well under the speed limit. The only cars they see are those behind them, honking mercilessly as soon as they dare linger, slow down even more. They arrive to Suga’s house before they can even blink.

I don’t want to go home yet, Suga wants to say. Again. But what reason does he have not to, now that he’s looking at his door, at the sad lawn chairs in the ‘garden’.

None, none he can admit.

So he takes a shallow breath and unfastens the seat belt. “Goodnight, Daichi-sa-”

“Wait!”

Daichi-san stops him with a hand on his arm and Suga turns around with butterflies in his stomach. “Yes?” he asks, and he’s never heard his voice like this.

Breathy, breathless as though he just ran a mile. Maybe he has, it feels like he has.

Daichi-san just looks at him for a moment and his throat bobs, up and down, nervously.

“I, um, I just wanted to say…”

“Yes?”

“To ask, actually…”

Suga’s heart skips a beat and he doesn’t know why. He knows all too well.

“What, um, what number was your jersey when you were at Karasuno?”

Oh.

“Oh…”

“Sorry, I know you don’t like to talk about it but…I was curious.”

Now that he’s asked, Daichi-san does seem awfully interested in the answer, a strangely intense look in his eyes.

Suga averts his own and looks at Daichi-san’s profile in the rearview mirror. “Twelve in my first and second year, then on my third year I got the jersey number 2. I was, um, I was vice-captain of my team.”

Daichi-san draws in a breath and then he smiles and it’s weird, it’s almost smug. “Number 2, uh?”

He laughs, shakes his head, both knowing and disbelieving.

His reflection gives nothing away, nothing more but for a strange tenderness at the corners of his eyes.

“What’s wrong with the number 2?” Suga asks, and he doesn’t mean to sound quite as offended by a joke he clearly is not getting, but still what’s so funny about the number 2?

“Nothing, really.”

Daichi-san turns serious again, stops his laughter, but his eyes are still twinkling with an emotion Suga doesn’t recognize. “There’s nothing wrong with the number 2. In fact, it’s quite perfect…”

He closes his mouth with a soft click of teeth, maybe not to say anything else, but Suga still blushes. He can’t not.

It’s quite perfect.

He turns away, hides away for the first time tonight, and opens the car door, steps down with a strange sluggishness. “Goodnight, Daichi-san,” he says again.

Daichi-san doesn’t stop him.

“Goodnight, Suga…”

In a daze Suga walks away, feeling the weight of Daichi-san’s eyes on him. In a daze he closes the door behind him and rests his head on the old, chipped wood.

He’s never felt so confused in his life. But even through the clouds above which he’s floating, one thing appears clear, speaks true to him. Too honest for him to ignore.

It feels like falling.

It does, he might one day. For this man, for the first time. And there is no way for him to stop it.

Slowly, he makes his way past the kitchen, past the living room and down the hallway.

His room is immersed in darkness, objects in still black and grey, only outlined by the silver of the moon seeping stubbornly through the curtains.

The glass of the frames glitters, the brightest thing around him, and Suga walks to his desk. Blindly he picks the smallest one of the bunch, almost hidden behind the others, a simple white circle with a sun drawn on the side. Suga doesn’t need to see to remember the picture enclosed by it.

He and his dad at the zoo, summer 1997, a couple of months after mom left. Suga had managed, through pleads and tears, to get his father out of the house for the first time since _that_ day. They’d had fun at the zoo, petting the farm animals and ‘oooh’ing at elephants and panda bears, but in the picture you could see the circles under his father’s eyes. How thin he was, how tired.

Suga with his face covered in cotton candy and his father doing his best not to break in front of him.

_I think I might be falling for someone, dad._

He wants to call him.

What would his father say to that? After the love of his life left him, would he encourage Suga to try and find a love of his own?

_How can I escape it?_

He wants to ask.

He wants it, he even said it to Daichi, how much he wants this. A relationship, again. Love, for the first time. But what good can it do, love, when it can’t go anywhere?

He talked about his mother, this tells him everything, how deep, how fast he’s falling. For the first time he said it out loud: ‘my mother left’. He didn’t imply it, he didn’t leave blank spaces in the story for people to fill in, he didn’t avoid it.

He admitted it, like he’s admitting this: he’s falling.

No, he can’t escape it. There is nothing he can do about it.

The phone beeps and buzzes in his pocket and Suga hurries to fish it, unlocks the screen with trembling fingers.

It’s a message from Ayame.

sleep well suga-san. we miss you.

And attached a picture of her and Kaede, both in their pajamas, sprawled on a bed with mint green sheets. They are smiling.

I miss you too, he types and sends. Quick, for he has too many things to say.

I miss you.

There is nothing he can do about this either.

He throws his phone on the bed and thumbs at the outline of the sun.

He can’t help falling, he can’t help loving these kids.

He can’t change his situation, with Daichi, with this family that is not – and will never be – his own. But maybe, maybe he can change.

Maybe he can stop running away from a past he never left behind.

At least this, he can do.

 

*

 

 

Daichi comes home to silence, with Suga’s laughter still ringing in his ears.

His voice, his words, a song in his head.

Number 2, like in his dream.

A reason behind the sadness in his eyes.

He’d felt it, the quiet strength inside Suga, from the very first time they met, but he never would have pictured a pain this vast. The steel beneath the soft of his skin, of his heart. Infuriatingly unexpected, like everything that Suga is.

In the silence of his home Daichi’s chest tightens.

Tonight, what does he make of tonight? What does he make of the anger that resurfaces as soon as his mind goes back to what Suga’s poor excuse of a mother did to him? Of the look Suga had given him before stepping out of his car?

What does he make of this terrifying want to see him again, even though it’s been less than twenty minutes since they said goodnight?

It’s loneliness, maybe. Latching on to Suga to cope with his children being away. Latching on to him because he’s their nanny, and Daichi is reminded of them when he sees him.

It’s bullshit.

It’s bullshit and he knows it. He’s a lawyer, he was trained to find the lie before it could disrupt his case. He recognizes it in himself, just as well as he does in others.

It’s bullshit, but for now he needs it.

For now he lives it, till he knows exactly what to do about it.

He makes to shrug off his jacket but his shoulders feel light. No tag to scratch his nape.

He forgot to get it back.

He steps out of his shoes with a sigh and makes his way upstairs, to Ayame’s room.

He sits on her bed, looks at her dozens of trophies, of medals and tags. The Karasuno jersey he gave her for her birthday hung above the bed, surveying the entire room. Suga’s wrist bands, one on the bedside table, the other peeking out from beneath the pillow.

Take to the skies.

Daichi thumbs the kanji, feels the stitches with his fingertips.

In one swift move he takes his phone out of his pocket and calls the only number on speed dial.

“Daddy…”

Ayame sounds tired, but not groggy nor grumpy the way she would if he’d just woken her up. Thankfully.

Daichi sighs, the line of his shoulders drops.

“Hey, love…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dream you equally, whether far or near,  
> But you are exact, without replica always,  
> You become music beneath my tranquil gaze,  
> As if with a glance, I see you through the ear.
> 
> \- Jules Supervielle


	13. Ships in the night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trying to find the light.

“Suga-san? Are you alright?”

Muffled voices on the other side of the door. A loud meow, the scratching of nails on wood.

Suga bends down the toilet and spits sour bile. The taste of it inside his mouth makes him gag.

Fuck.          

He sighs and it’s as shaky as his limbs.

He manages to get to his feet leaning heavily on the wall and still shaky, still unsteady, makes his way to the sink.

The cold water on his face and down the inside of his wrists helps. Once he’s brushed his teeth he feels ready to take on the world again.

Alright, maybe that’s an exaggeration.

“Koushi?” Tooru whispers and knocks gently on the door.

Suga unlocks it and lets them all in.

Onyx is the first to approach him, paws at his pajama pants with a worried look on her face and only settles when Suga kneels down and takes her in his arms.

“How are you feeling, Suga-san?” Taka asks, in his usual, unexpected soft voice. He’s the only one who stayed outside, just outside the door, respectful even in his apprehension.

Except there is absolutely no reason to get apprehensive.

“I’m fine, you guys, really…” Suga tries to say but it comes out muffled. Onyx is rubbing her face against Suga’s cheek and she’s being so thorough she almost results aggressive.

Poor darling, she had been sleeping in his hair when he’d bolted out of the bed to throw up last night’s dinner. “I’m sorry I worried you,” he continues, in Onyx’s ear, his eyes on his flatmates.

Tooru takes a step toward him and presses his palm on Suga’s forehead, brushes Suga’s bangs away from his eyes. “You don’t feel warm,” he proclaims, and his hand moves down to cup Suga’s jaw.

“I’m not, I’m not sick, Tooru.”

They share a glance, and Tooru understands.

“Another one of your bloody dreams, uh?”

Suga nods and, with Onyx perched on his shoulder, gets out of the bathroom to let Taka wash up. Guy has a lesson at 9 am, if he doesn’t hurry he’ll be late. Suga squeezes his arm as he goes and Taka closes the door behind him, but not before throwing another worried look Suga’s way.

“You want some coffee?” Tooru asks, with all the nonchalance he doesn’t possess. His arm is now around Suga’s waist.

“No, thanks Tooru. I think I’m going to try to get a little more sleep.”

_As if._

As soon as he’s alone again  locked inside his room, Suga sits on the edge of the bed and covers his eyes, his face in his hands.

It was her again.

This time he’s sure it was her.

Running to follow the crazy pace of the carousel, he’d turned around and there she was. With her back to him, her white sundress with blue peonies and that straight, perfect posture he’d never managed to imitate. Thin shoulders in a perfect line, nothing to weigh them down.

Her hair was short, like Suga remembers – like he thinks he remembers – and Suga knew it was her, at once. Her back, he recognizes it. From the day she’d left, a baggage in each hand but still standing perfectly upright under the sunlight, a beautiful silhouette with one foot already outside the door.

Suga is not sure, he doesn’t know if he’d called for her then, but he did this morning, in his dream.

In his dream, Suga had called her, again and again, - “Mom! Mom! No, no, don’t leave. Please, mom…” – but she’d never turned to face him. In his dream Suga had started to run after her, in the opposite, opposing, direction to which the carousel was moving.

He’d run and run, until his heart felt like it was exploding in his chest, avoiding horses and carriages and poles painted gold and white. He’d run but for every step he took, the carousel had dragged him away, further away from her.

How long had it been going on? How long before he’d finally given up? How long before he’d opened his eyes?

His lips part around a sigh, but it’s a sob that breaks through him. And then another. One more, and tears join.

His fists close, press against his eyes but the tears still fall. Sobs still make his entire body shake.

He’d been so relieved last night, so determined. Ask him, ask dad about her, finally. What was she like? Why did you marry her? Why is a part of you still waiting for her after what she’s done?

Do I look like her?

The question Suga dreads the most.

Why did she leave?

Try to find an answer together.

Now, all that he is is scared. Answers scare him. The possibilities, the things his father might say scare him. What if she wasn’t a monster, the monster Suga constantly pictured in his head in middle school, the first years of high school? What if she was kind, what if she was lovely and used to smile to everyone she’d meet?

What if he has her smile? What if the smile he’s been so often complimented for is her own? What if she liked shrimps too, and volleyball, and spicy food?

What if…what if…

What if his running away from the subject – the matter of her – is not that dissimilar to her running away from him, from his father, from what was supposed to be her family?

Sour turns the taste on Suga’s tongue and suddenly he wants to throw up again.

Restless his hands reach out for the phone on the bedside table. It almost drops on the floor when he taps on the screen with too much force.

Browsing down his numbers he stops on ‘Daichi-san’, lingers there for just a moment, then presses on the number beneath.

‘Calling Dad’…

…

“The number you have reached is currently unavailable.”

Fuck.

Dad must be in the basement of the shop, working on a piece. There’s no signal there.

Worst of all, Suga doesn’t know if the loosening of his shoulders is disappointment or relief.

He really is despicable.

He’s just about to put the phone down when it buzzes in his palm. He jumps and with him Onyx, who was trying to take a nap on his lap.

There’s a new message.

Suga opens it, already suspecting who it might be.

_The uncanny Sawamura timing…_

And sure enough, here it is.

good morning suga. ready to get back to work?

The wonderful Sawamura timing.

 

*

 

 

Daichi hits ‘send’ with unsure fingers, leg bouncing uncontrolled in nerves.

He checks the clock and groans. It’s only, barely 9:10. He’s been here for 20 minutes, _20_ _minutes_ , and already he can’t wait to leave.

The phone beeps chirpily at a successfully sent message and Daichi’s leg hits the underside of the wood hard. He shouldn’t have sent that text, it’s 9:10, surely Suga is still sleeping. And after yesterday what if he comes off as too earnest? Not that anything happened yesterday, logically he has no reason to act this paranoid.

Oh, who the hell is he kidding? Everything happened yesterday, nothing in the concrete sense – and not that Daichi wants anything concrete to happen – but it’d be stupid, stupidly naïve of Daichi to think that yesterday will change nothing. Many things have already started to change.

Daichi leans back on his chair, eyes on the ceiling, and sighs as though he just completed the twelve labours of Hercules.

In all truth, he would rather face a giant lion, a poisonous Hydra and a crazed bull all together than deal with…with this.

_What a stupid idea it would be, to get involved with him._

He knows, of course Daichi knows. He didn’t need Yurika to tell him.

But he doesn’t…he doesn’t want that, per se. Really. Maybe.

It’s just so easy with Suga. As complicated as their situation is, when they are alone all Daichi feels is ease. Awkward, constantly second-guessing what would be appropriate and what not, still he can _talk_ to Suga, of things he never really talks about. He can just be, in ways he hasn’t been in years.

That must count for something, right?

Maybe.

The phone buzzes, loud, and Daichi almost falls back with his chair. He grabs the desk with steady fingers and gets himself and the chair upright, takes a breath and checks.

It’s from Suga.

morning! is it lame if i admit i can’t /wait/ to get back to work?

Daichi snorts.

kind of, i don’t think there are that many people who would say that…

He only has to wait two minutes for an answer.

that’s just because their job is not spending time with your children

Warmth spreads inside Daichi, so comforting it makes his eyes prickle.

you have a point. so i’ll see you tonight?

Why a question, when he already knows the answer?

of course, daichi-san

_Of course, Daichi-san._

It’s like Suga is whispering it in his ear. The soft lull of his voice so clear, it’s become so familiar, it causes Daichi to shiver. The simple memory is enough.

“What is it about this guy?” he whispers under his breath, eyes closed projecting the shape of wide, beautiful brown eyes. A lovely mole under the left one.

“Which guy?”

Daichi turns on his chair, heart in his throat, and feigns a cough to avoid the question. He waves Mai in.

“Good morning, Daichi,” she intones and makes her way to him to press a swift kiss on his cheek.

“Hello,” he says and when it results too dismissive he turns his face the other way to have her kiss his other cheek as well. She does, and lingers.

“Which guy?” she asks again, right in his ear.

Daichi shivers, but this time out of an unreasonable, unsettling dread. He knows that tone.

“Just, um, just one of my clients…”

Mai straightens and crosses her arms over her chest. Daichi doesn’t like that smirk on her face, not one bit. “Oh really? Which one?”

Shit.

“Um…”

God, why can’t he seem to remember even one, bloody name?

“Um, it’s…it’s that guy with the…with the goatee?”

Does he have a client with a goatee? He thinks he does.

“Oh, Kawanishi-san?”

“Yeah, sure.”

A pregnant pause.

“Kawanishi-san is a woman.”

Shit.

“And she’s one of _my_ clients.”

Mai is looking at him like the cat who just got the mouse. “So who is The Guy?” she asks again, and her inflection, her pause before ‘the guy’ have him blushing.

She knows about him, has known for a while that he is attracted to men as well as women. Daichi never denied it, but he never advertised it either, they still live in Japan after all, and telling Mai had been a very deliberate test of trust. She had passed it with flying colors, her usual, careless grace.

“Good for you,” had been her exact words, then she had reached out and pinched his cheek, as if to thank him for having told her.

Still, he doesn’t know if he should…tell her about this. Especially considering he has no clue what _this_ is. It’s just…it’s complicated. He remembers their talk, yesterday morning in the kitchen, it’s just having fun, this thing between them, blah blah, but Mai is still the woman he has been having…sexual relations with for the past couple of months-

“It’s your nanny, isn’t it?”

…he can’t just tell his sort-of kind-of lover that…wait, what?

“Wait, what?”

Mai smiles. “The lovely Sugawara-kun, it’s him.”

Not a question anymore.

Daichi gapes at her as his heart drops in his stomach, then down to reach his feet. It’s probably trying to escape his body altogether in shame. Is he really that predictable, that easy to read?

“Kind of, I’m afraid.”

Mai pats his shoulder and he covers his eyes with a hand. She won’t let it go, she will keep teasing him, sending knowing looks his way until he spill the beans. So Daichi gives in, just a little. “It’s nothing, really. It’s just…I met him yesterday, after work…”

“Yes, Yuu-kun told me.”

“Yeah, he was just sitting there, reading, and-” her words register in his brain and he almost screams, “wait, Nishinoya told you?”

Mai gestures for him to keep it down, Daichi bites his lips and groans, face hidden in his hands. Nishinoya told her? _Nishinoya?_

God fucking damn it.

“Mmm, he said he and Tanaka-kun saw you cross the street to go to him, after you pretty much shoved them in a cab.”

“I did _not_ shove them!”

God, he’s screwed. He’s never going to live this down, on his deathbed they’ll still be narrating it, the tale of when Daichi-san behaved like a fourteen year old in front of his crush.

Mai’s shoulders are shaking, she looks two seconds away from laughing right in his face. Apparently, his problems are laughable to her, his misery is amusing. Daichi scowls and starts rearranging the files on his desk, opens one and hides his face inside it, a clear invitation for her to leave.

Mai is not impressed.

“So what did he do?”

Daichi wets the tip of his thumb with his tongue and turns the page. It almost rips. “Who?”

“Do you really want to play this game?” Before he can even blink, let alone come up with an answer, Mai has taken the papers away from him and thrown them on one of the little sofas he usually sits with his clients during lengthy meetings.

Without a hiding place and with Mai’s eyes boring holes into his skull, Daichi gives up.

He sighs and drops his empty hands in his lap. “He did nothing. He…we just talked.”

“And?”

“And nothing. It was different, outside the house, without the kids. He’s…he’s pretty great.”

That’s all he manages to say. He’s not sure he could describe it, the way last night felt. How uncovering little parts of Suga, finally getting to look at them, had felt. “He’s great,” he repeats and his eyes fix to the bookshelf on the opposite wall.

Mai hums, nods, stays silent.

His office phone comes alive twice – the first time it’s Ennoshita reminding him of their meeting with that asshole Akinori-san to finalize his divorce, the other from Shimizu-san, who means to assign him a case ‘’delicate to handle’’, her own words, and wants to talk with him about it first.

Daichi tells Shimizu-san he has some time right now, so she can at least give him a quick heads-up, and only when he’s hung up and ready to leave Mai talks again.

“Do you think you…with him?”

Daichi stops with his hand on the doorknob. He wishes he could say ‘no’, a no so firm it would convince him but after yesterday night, he’s not sure of anything…

“I don’t know,” he says, “for now I just think he’s great.”

Mai walks to him and Daichi is grateful he has his back to her, he’s grateful he can’t see her face, and that she can’t see his.

“Well, I think there is no reason to panick quite yet,” she tells him in her most soothing tone, Daichi has never heard it before, “he’s an attractive man, everyone could see that, but that doesn’t mean everyone _finds_ him attractive.”

_That’s because not everyone knows him._

“Getting way into your own head will just amplify this-”

_This_. What is _this_?

“So just take a deep breath and wait to see how this evolves. It could be just a…silly crush, that’ll be gone in the matter of weeks. People get them all the time.”

Her hand rests between his shoulder blades and it’s both a weight and a comforting presence. “Maybe you are overreacting because you haven’t experienced one for a while, and you are making it bigger than it actually is.”

Mai has a point, it’s been so long since the last…since Yurika.

Yes, he likes this explanation. It’s logical, honest, perfectly plausible.

Maybe he likes it a little too much.

Daichi nods and turns to give her a quick smile. “Thanks, Mai.”

This too is honest.

Mai smiles back at him and squeezes his shoulder. “I’m good for more than excellent fucks, Sawamura. If you need to talk, you know where to find me.”

She walks past him and out of his office, her perfume leaving an almost visible trail behind her.

 

*

 

 

Suga doesn’t try to call his father again.

From experience he knows that when his father starts working on a piece he’s likely to come out of his ‘’cave’’ only when he’s either downright starving or two seconds away from fainting from exhaustion.

After Suga’s mom left and until he went away for college, every day after school Suga would make sure to bring down sandwiches for him. Only sandwiches, at most onigiri or a bag of meat buns, something his dad could eat in a couple of bites, without even having to stop his work.

Now that he’s not here, Suga can only hope his timed messages - ‘remember to eat’ or ‘get some sleep’ or even, when he’s feeling cheeky, ‘there is no toilet in the basement so invest in diapers if you really don’t want to climb the stairs’ – won’t go ignored for too long.

So Suga texts his father, a quick ‘make sure to eat something. love you,’ dabs at his puffy eyes with a wet tissue and gets out of the apartment in a quick march.

Mrs. Devaux welcomes him with a silent, pleased smile and gestures for him to come in with hands covered in soil. She’s talking with a client, a pretty girl that looks around Suga’s age and blushes a little when she catches sight of him stalling by the door.

“These are pretty, but I don’t know if she’d like them…”

“Don’t worry about it, darling. Every woman likes carnations!”

Suga thumbs at the petals of a bright red lilium and keeps quiet, stands as close to the shelves as he can. He doesn’t want to distract Mrs. Devaux from her business, he already takes so much of her time away from the shop…

“What about those ones?” the woman asks, pointing somewhere above Suga’s head.

Suga blinks at the pairs of eyes meeting his and looks up, only for his stomach to drop to his feet.

Without thinking he takes a step forward, away.

Blue peonies. In a white vase.

“Koushi-kun, could you take them for me?” Mrs. Devaux asks, her voice feeble as though it’s coming from galaxies away. After a moment of hesitation Suga does.

He almost drops them on the counter, they land with a sharp thud that makes both women start.

“These are beautiful, too,” the girl says and thumbs at the petals the same way Suga had just a few moments before. She looks up at him through her eyelashes, “don’t you think so?”

Suga gapes at her. He’s not used to women making passes at him or showing an interest that is not just friendly and strictly platonic. They always seem to prefer idol-like attractive men like Tooru, or classically handsome men like Hajime. Or even better, Daichi-san.

He clears his throat and gives her an awkward shrug. “I’m not really a fan of peonies, to be honest.”

The understatement of the century. “I just think they are a little…” trifling, shallow, fickle, “pompous.”

“Oh…”

The girl seems to deflate before his eyes and Suga wishes he were alone so he could kick himself.

_Get a grip, she’s not the one you are mad at…_

“But, um, to each their own. De gustibus and all that…”

He gestures at the carnations and offers her a smile. “These ones were an excellent choice, I think.”

She smiles back and in the end she buys the carnations, that Mrs. Devaux arranges in a lovely bouquet. She lingers by the door too, and before leaving she throws another shy glance Suga’s way.

“Maybe I should hire you, Koushi-kun,” Mrs. Devaux teases as soon as the girl is gone, “I have a feeling you’d increase my sales…”

Koushi sits on a stool behind the counter and helps her cut the stems of a pile of red roses. He’s sure his ears must be turning the same color. “I really don’t think so…”

There’s a brief pause where they work in silence, side by side. Suga doesn’t look up from the roses, but still he can feel Mrs. Devaux’s gaze on him, intense, studying him. As per usual.

“That girl has come here before, you know? I think she works for a firm a couple of blocks away . Next time I see her I’m sure I could get her to give me her number, if I tell her it’s for you.”

Mrs. Devaux’s tone is kind enough, but it’s clear she knows what Suga’s answer is going to be. Has known all along.

“No, thank you. I, um, I really don’t think it’d be a good idea.”

“Mmm.”

“She’s not my type,” he says to the roses, even though he can’t even remember what the girl had looked like. He’s never dated women before, he finds many of them beautiful, some even manage to fluster him, but he’s never seriously considered entering a relationship with any of them.

Tooru would say that just makes him ‘a proud, flaming gay man’ but on principle Suga tries to listen to Tooru as little as possible. He was never one to speak in absolutes.

The sharp swish of the scissors closing in on the stem nearly covers Mrs. Devaux’s next question.

“Then what _is_ your type?”

The rose between Suga’s fingers almost slips to the ground as Daichi-san’s face fills his every thought. That day in the garden, beautiful in the dying sun, in the kitchen, dark and hunched on the sink, yesterday night, twisted in anger for him, gentle when he’d offered Suga his hand.

Mrs. Devaux takes the rose and lays it down on the counter, between them, then covers his hand with her own. “Can I hazard a guess?”

Shame washes over him and Suga’s shoulders bow under the weight of it.

“Oh God.”

“Koushi-kun,” Mrs. Devaux calls and circles his shoulders with an arm, “Koushi-kun, there’s nothing to be ashamed for.”

Suga laughs, but it’s not happy. How could it be? “Of course there is. There is everything to be ashamed of.”

He closes his eyes, the colors around him too bright, they hurt. “He’s my boss, he’s a _father_. He’s the father of the children I’m supposed to look after…”

“He’s also a man, Koushi-kun. And so are you. You are just a man, and men have never been able to help the way they feel. We still haven’t evolved this much, and I hope we never do.”

Mrs. Devaux squeezes him into a hug and Suga starts at how comforting it feels. It reminds him of the way his father hugs him, awkward, yes, but full of warmth. He allows himself one more moment of warmth, then he pulls away slowly. “I’m, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she says, and clings to him before she lets him go. “Don’t be.”

They keep cutting the stems, a sharp diagonal. Suga puts down the thirteenth rose.

“Was I that obvious?”

He needs to ask, he needs to know.

Mrs. Devaux stays quiet for a little too long and the answer is clear.

“Fuck.”

He wishes the earth would just swallow him whole.

“Hey,” Mrs. Devaux says, again with that gentle tone, “it was obvious to me, but it might not be to others. And he wasn’t being subtle either…”

Suga freezes, scissors closing in the air. “What?”

His heart stops, and then picks up, twice as fast.

“I said that just because I noticed doesn’t mean-”

“No. No, the…he wasn’t being what?”

Mrs. Devaux starts at the almost shrillness of his voice, the lost look in his eyes. “He wasn’t being subtle,” she repeats, slower.

Oh, so he didn’t hear wrong.

“Koushi-kun, surely you must have noticed the way he looks at y-”

No.

“No.”

He shakes his head and starts cutting stems again. The scissors are trembling. “No, I…it can’t be.”

It can’t be.

“Darling, I’m telling you-”

“Please don’t. Please.”

_Don’t give me hope._

If he starts to hope, then he’s not going to be able to keep this under control. If he gets into his head that he has a chance – _he doesn’t, he doesn’t, he doesn’t_ – then it’ll only get worse, his feelings, the situation. Everything he’s tried so hard to build, their friendship, the relationship with Ayame and Kaede.

He can’t hope. He doesn’t want to know.

Except he can and is already starting to, except he does.

“Can we change the subject?” he whispers. His stomach is tied in knots.

Mrs. Devaux nods. She starts talking about that bride she had to design a bouquet for, how her mother almost took her by the hair when she found out her idea for the bouquet were simple calla lilies artfully tied by a red satin ribbon.

“For a moment there I feared for my life…”

She keeps talking, until Suga’s chest has stopped hurting and the scissors in his hands are steady.

The roses are arranged into high-necked vases and displayed where everyone can see them. Suga helps clean the counter with used newspapers and throws the cut stems in the bin. Standing up he elbows something by accident and almost makes it fall.

He manages to catch it at the last moment and of course it’s the white vase of blue peonies.

“Wow, you really hate those flowers, Koushi-kun,” Mrs. Devaux jokes.

He wishes. He wishes he could just hate…

“To be honest, I’m not much of a fan either but it sells well,” Mrs. Devaux says, then a pause and her tone turns wistful, “I remember there were bushes of pink and blue ones growing back in our garden in Angers.”

The smile is clear in her voice. “Me and my sister used to choose the prettiest ones, rip them and put them in our hair…”

Suga takes the vase and stands on his tiptoes to put it back on its spot on the tall shelf by the door, but with more gentleness than before.

Then he turns his back to the flowers to sit again by Mrs. Devaux’s side.

“Why did you leave?” he asks.

_If you miss it so much then why did you leave? Are you going to go back as soon as living here gets too hard?_

Mrs. Devaux tenses and lets out a deep sigh. She busies herself fixing flowers that are already perfect.

“I needed to find someone,” she answers at last.

Suga starts, surprised. It’s a weird answer, one he couldn’t have expected or predicted. “That someone is here, in Japan?”

“Yes.”

“And did you find them?”

Mrs. Devaux’s frame starts to shakie under his gaze and Suga jumps to his feet to put a hand on her shoulder. God, if he made her cry he’s never going to forgive himself.

She leans into his touch but at the concern written on his face she smiles. It’s too small and uncertain to be reassuring.

“I did,” she whispers, to him, to the flowers around them, “but I’m not sure he wants to be found…”

Suga looks at her and doesn’t understand. So he just holds her close, the way she’d done with him only minutes before.

 

 

Kaede clings to him as soon as he sees him waiting outside the classroom.

It’s not a hug, not quite, but it warms Suga all the same, Kaede’s ruffled head resting briefly on his stomach, hands closed around the fabric of his shirt.

“Hello to you too,” he says, can’t help the pleased smile making its way on his face.

Sadness seems to have no place when he gets to be near these kids.

“Hi,” Kaede whispers back and lets him go, cheeks tinged pink.

Suga waves briefly at Kaede’s teacher and together they walk outside.

“So, did you have fun with your mother?”

He tries to be casual about it, but a part of him wishes Kaede would say something like ‘’I have more fun with you, Suga-san’’. It’s stupid, and it’s selfish, but like Mrs. Devaux said, Suga can’t exactly help what he feels.

Kaede thinks about it for a moment then nods. “I did, but I think mom was nervous.”

“What makes you say that?”

“She tried to make us play all these games. The other times she letted us do what we wanted…”

Yurika-san’s dejected expression when it had taken just a moment too long for Ayame to go hug her stamps itself into Suga’s brain and he sighs, dejected.

_Alright, alright. Doing the right thing._

“After so many months spent away from you and your sister I’m sure she just wanted everything to be perfect,” he says, quiet but not too much, “be understanding.”

Kaede steps closer to him and takes his hand in the busy street. “Alright, Suga-san.”

“And it’s ‘let’ not ‘letted’.”

“Let? Why? It was past…”

“The verb ‘let’ doesn’t change, it stays ‘let’ in the past and in the past participle.”

Kaede’s face scrunches up in deep thoughts. “I see. So it’s like ‘put’?”

“Exactly, and like ‘cut’.”

Kaede looks up at Suga. Suga looks down at Kaede.

“Hit!” says Kaede.

“Hurt!” Suga replies.

“Shut!”

“Set!”

“Bust!”

“Burst!”

“…cut?”

“A-ha! I already said that. I’m sorry, Kaede-kun, but I win this round!”

Kaede scowls but it’s short-lived, he’s smiling once again when Suga tugs playfully at his hand.

“That was very good, though. Keeping up with _me_ , I think you deserve an extra snack today, of your choice!” he says and Kaede almost preens at the praise, beams at his promise.

“Anko manju, anko manju!” he chants.

Suga bites the inside of his cheek to hide a smirk and with a flourish, a grand flick of wrist he takes the little paper bag full of anko manju out of his bag. He’d bought it on his way to the city this morning, he was just looking for an excuse to give them to Kaede-kun. After all he can’t give away how soft he’s gotten because of these kids, or they’ll use it against him when they beg him to let them do his hair again…

Kaede takes the bag with greedy hands.

“I wish you were my teacher too,” is a murmur against Suga’s side.

“Because I give you sweets as rewards when you answer well?”

“Not only that!”

Suga turns away to beam at the sky. “Careful what you wish for, Kaede-kun. You’d grow tired of me, seeing me at school, then again at your house…”

Kaede shakes his head, so resolute his hair moves with the motion and gets into his eyes. “No. No, that’s impossible.”

Suga takes a manju for himself and squeezes the small, soft hand in his. He never wants to let go.

 

Ayame does hug him when he and Kaede go pick her up, a hug so fierce it knocks the breath out of him.

“I missed you,” she tells him with an embarrassed smile on her face.

“I missed you too. So much.”

He looks at her, then at Kaede, and adds, “both of you.”

His kids – his kids, _his_ _kids_ \- blush to the root of their hair and look down at their shoes.

They walk hand in hand, with Suga in the middle, and take up the entire sidewalk for themselves. When a disgruntled student glares at them for having to plaster himself to a shop window to walk past them Suga and Ayame grin at him and start swinging their joined hands back and forth.

Kaede covers his mouth with his free hand and chuckles at their antics.

Clouds are covering the sun now and Suga doesn’t even notice, he hardly even cares.

Once home, and finally allowed to settle, he asks Ayame too of the days spent at her mom’s house and the answer he receives is quite different.

Ayame tenses next to him on the couch and Suga catches the brief look Kaede sends her way. Instinctively he tenses too.

“It was nice,” she deadpans, out of words. Or rather, unwilling to come up with more.

Suga decides to push it, at least this once. “Just nice?”

Ayame fixes her eyes on her lap, where her hands are tightly joined, fingers squeezing so tight they are turning white at the tips. “It was fun until she brought _him_ …”

“Come on, Aya. He was there for, like, five minutes…”

“It was enough!”

“Alright, alright,” Suga raises his hands, but not his voice. “Him would be your mother’s…um, partner?”

Kaede nods. “Yes.”

“He came by to drop off something,” Ayame continues, her expression tight with distaste, “he forgot we were supposed to be there, that’s what he said.”

“And your mother?”

“She sent him away, thankfully.”

Silence stretches between them. Kaede is biting his lip, he looks like he wants to say something.

Suga nudges him and gives him his most encouraging smile.

After one more moment of hesitation, Kaede speaks. “I don’t think he was that bad,” he’s whispering at first, then he gets surer and surer with every word until he’s talking over the TV. “I mean, he seemed nice…”

Ayame turns to face him with blazing eyes. “How can you say that when he was there for five minutes?”

Kaede replies in kind. “How can you say he wasn’t?”

Suga keeps quiet, and his heart breaks as Ayame’s face crumbles under the insistence of her brother’s gaze.

“I just, I don’t want her to find someone else so soon.”

Kaede’s eyes widen, it must be unusual even for him, hearing his sister so uncertain. Suga doesn’t know what to say, he doesn’t know if he should say anything at all, so he circles Ayame’s shoulders with an arm and hopes this little will be enough.

She leans into him, even more, with her full weight, and rests her head on his chest.

“What if she finds someone else and forgets about us?”

Finally a question Suga has an answer to.

He presses a kiss in her hair and holds her even closer. “That’s not possible,” he says, with the utmost conviction, “now that I’ve met Yurika-san, I can say this for sure: she’s not the kind of mother who would just forget about her children.”

And even more certain, “and you are not the kind of children it’s easy to forget about.”

“We are not?”

God, he hates how small Ayame’s voice sounds.

“No. Only an idiot would forget about you. Only an idiot wouldn’t want you as his children.”

“Her children…” Kaede interjects.

Right. _Her_. It’s Yurika-san they are talking about.

“Yes, her,” Suga clears his throat, “and your mother is not an idiot, is she?”

Ayame and Kaede look at each other, then at him, and together they say, “No.”

“Right.”

The noise from the TV is unbearable in the quiet, Kaede stretches to grab the remote and shuts it off with an annoyed huff. Then he leans back on the couch, his cheek nearly resting on Suga’s shoulder.

“You don’t want mom and dad to get back together, right Aya?”

Ayame shrugs. It’s awkward, considering the way she’s snuggled against Suga’s side. “I don’t know, I don’t think so.”

Her hands close into fists. “Dede doesn’t remember them together but I do, a little,” she’s talking to Suga now, she needs to make sure at least one grown-up is listening, “they weren’t happy.”

Suga nods and starts caressing her hair. “They used to fight?”

“No, not really. They just, they never spoke. They never played like you and daddy do sometimes.”

It’s careless, without hidden meanings, but Suga’s stomach still tightens in nerves.

“I don’t want them to be sad again.”

The image of his father sitting by that bloody window appears unbidden before Suga’s eyes. He’s been waiting for twenty years, surrounding himself with solitude. The idea that it might happen to Daichi-san too makes Suga want to scream.

He doesn’t care if it’s him or not, he doesn’t, but Daichi-san deserves someone, to be loved by someone the way he deserves. He can’t bear the thought of Daichi-san forcing a loneliness he doesn’t want upon himself, he can’t bear it.

“And do you think that being alone would make them happy?” he asks, he doesn’t mean to.

It’s too late to take it back.

Ayame raises her head to look him in the eyes, her own wide and shocked, lost. “I…”

Suga shakes his head and cards his fingers through her hair again. “You have a right to be scared, Ayame.”

“And I understand that in your eyes Yurika-san and Daichi-san are your parents first and foremost, I do. But they are also people. And people, most people…they want someone to share their life with.”

Suga talks and Ayame looks away, her cheeks red with shame. He pulls at her hair gently to get her to meet his eyes again. “It’s alright, Ayame. You did nothing wrong.”

“But I said it.”

“Nah, you were just a little rash in your judgement. Happens to everyone.”

“To you too?”

“Me? All the time! You’d think that, as old as I am, I would have grown to be a little wiser over the years but nope!”

Ayame giggles and rests her cheek on his chest again. Kaede, who has kept quiet the entire time, chuckles too and reaches out to hold Suga’s hand.

“So, try to get to know the guy a little before.”

“And if I still don’t like him?”

“Well, if you still think he doesn’t deserve your mother then…”

“Kick him in the crotch!”

It’s Kaede who screams it, and both Suga and Ayame gape at him in shock before bursting out laughing.

_It’s always the quiet ones…_

“I was going to say ‘talk to your mother about it’…”

“Ooops.”

And they are off again.

They are all still shaking and red in the face when Ayame mutters, “Daddy is doomed then.”

“Why?”

She raises an eyebrow at Kaede’s question, as though the answer is obvious. “Well, do you really think there’s someone out there good enough to deserve him?”

Suga smiles at the clouds outside the window, but it’s bitter.

_No. No, there isn’t._

 

*

 

 

Daichi leaves the office on tiptoes, or at least he tries.

The thin ping of the elevator resounds like a gunshot in the seemingly empty entrance. Daichi steps outside and glues his body to the wall, ears on the alert for any sort of noises that might come from the surveillance room.

Nothing. Just silence around him.

Good.

He takes a step toward the door, then another.

One more and everything is still calm. He starts walking faster.

The elevator pings again and Daichi jumps. The soles of his shoes squeak on the marble floors.

A guy from two floors under walks out, Daichi is pretty sure his name is Toji, but he wouldn’t bet on it. Maybe-Toji meets his eyes and breaks into a polite smile.

“Hello, Sawamura-san. Going home?”

Daichi closes his eyes, his shoulders stoop under the weight of his dread. Sure enough, the sound of steps approaching – of two pairs of feet walking toward him – echoes in the heavy air.

_I was trying to, damn you Toji._

_Their_ faces peek through the open door of the surveillance room, they are wearing matching smirks on their faces. Daichi sighs and resigns himself to this fate.

“Oooh Ryuu, look, it’s our modern days Romeo!”

_No._

“A true Prince Charming of the digital age!”

“The Paul Varjak of the twenty-first century!”

“Why not the Rick Blaine of the twenty-first century?”

“Will you two shut up?”

It’s been 30 seconds and Daichi’s blood pressure is already rising, the vein in his temple already throbbing. He’s sure he’s blushing as well, though he’s _not_ sure whether it’s from mortification or rage.

Both, probably both.

He throws a glare at Toji, who cowers before his fury.

Good. It’s all his fault he’s in this situation to begin with, if it hadn’t been for his chipper greeting – what reason does he have to be chipper in the first place? – Daichi would have succeeded in a quick, stealthy escape.

But maybe…maybe if he runs he can’t still make it, he can still save the last shreds of his dignity.

He guesses the distance to the door, measureS that between him and that pair of vultures. It’d be hard, hard but doable. He has to try.

Daichi turns on his heels and starts to run.

He hasn’t taken three steps that both Nishinoya and Tanaka are on him.

“Where are you running off to, Daichi-san?” Tanaka asks and grabs him by the elbow.

“You don’t have a beauty waiting for you now, do you?” Now it’s Nishinoya, taking him by the other arm to lead him to the surveillance room under Toji’s – truly horrified – gaze.

“Reading on a bench to make the wait more bearable?”

“Looking ethereal in the moonlight glow…”

“Silver hair glittering like stars in the sky…”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake.”

Daichi lets himself fall on the nearest chair, the closest to the door. “He wasn’t waiting for me.”

That’s really the only part he can contest. The rest, well the rest is pretty much spot-on.

They latch onto it all the same.

“He wasn’t?”

“You two weren’t…?”

Now the blush on Daichi’s face is only due to embarrassment. “Weren’t what, Nishinoya?”

“Oh don’t give me that crap, Daichi-san!”

“We weren’t, alright? We weren’t.”

He didn’t know disappointment could be contagious, but that which he sees on his friends’ faces Daichi feels it too, all for himself. They weren’t on a date, it was just chance that made them meet, and maybe a little bit of luck.

Suga had been reading, if Daichi hadn’t seen him from the other side of the road he would have kept reading his French poets for a while more and then…then he would have gone home, to his battered student home, or maybe he would have gone to him. To that guy he’s kind of dating, kind of not.

If Daichi hadn’t seen Suga, he would have walked home to a empty house that’s way too big for one, miserable and irritated and moody.

If. If, if, if. So many ifs, because it hadn’t been a decision to meet there, Daichi hadn’t asked Suga. He would never ask Suga…

Oh, who the fuck is he trying to fool here. He’s talking to himself after all.

“Um, Daichi-san?”

Daichi starts and finds Tanaka’s eyes fixed in his. “We are not…like that.”

Nishinoya starts a stream of protests, he waxes poetics about Suga again, he tries to lecture Daichi on how to ‘live a manlier life’, mentions a certain Norio Daichi has never heard about before, and tells him how if he were in Daichi’s place he wouldn’t let a catch like that slip away from his fingers.

Daichi is not listening, not really, startled as he is by the look Tanaka is giving him.

Of the two, Tanaka has always been the calmer one, softer in a way. Sympathetic in a deep, visceral way that Noya doesn’t experience, probably doesn’t even get. More respectful too, to his seniors, to women, to people’s sensibilities.

The harsh slit of his eyes, the tight line of his mouth, Daichi has never seen it directed at him before.

He doesn’t like it.

When Tanaka says it, he whispers it so softly not even Nishinoya sitting right next to him can hear it: “I never thought I’d say this, but you really are an idiot.”

Daichi waits just a second for an apology that is not going to come, then he stands up - a little too fast – and without giving Noya the time to stop him he leaves.

 

He comes home to the same silence that has been smothering him for the past two days and for a moment he panicks, thinking that maybe he’d counted the days wrong, maybe Yurika decided to keep the kids for a little while longer, maybe he’ll have to spend another evening in silence watching the lights change the shadows in the room. Maybe…

Laughter, coming from the backyard. Ayame’s, loud and boisterous, then Kaede’s, breathless and unexpected.

Daichi’s heart settles and he can breathe again. Shoes still on and jacket thrown over his shoulder, Daichi walks to them. He runs.

He opens the backyard door and the sound of Suga’s voice, vibrant and soft, fills the air. Daichi sees them, the three of them lying on a blanket, pointing at the sky and chatting, arguing. Ayame is still laughing, her face hidden in the crook of Suga’s neck.

“It’s Nessie. It’s so Nessie.”

“No, Suga-san, it’s a giraffe!”

“It’s too fat to be a giraffe, I’m telling you it’s Nessie!”

So close they are their hair have intertwined, black strands among silver, shining blue and blinding white even under this feeble sun. A piano with no order to its keys.

“Like you told us that one cloud was an elephant?” Ayame interjects between giggles, and from where he’s standing Daichi can see Suga cringe.

“Hey! From my angle that looked like a proboscis!”

“A what?”

“It’s the other name for trunk.”

“Oh…”

“Then what about that one?” Kaede points at another cloud, solitary in a little slice of clear sky.

Daichi looks at it and smiles. “That one is clearly a flower.”

Three faces twist and turn to gape at him, and he doesn’t even have time to say ‘hello’ that he already has a armful of children. Warmth surrounds him, covers him, and he’s finally home.

He holds Ayame close and picks Kaede up, presses kisses on their hair, their cheeks, their noses. God, he spent two whole days missing them but only now it hits him just how much.

“Daddy, you’re itchy…” Kaede tries to protest, Daichi lifts his chin to press more kisses on his hair instead.

“I missed you, I missed you so, so much.”

“Me too, daddy.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Daichi smiles at Kaede, tucked against his chest, down at Ayame, laughing in his arms, then reflections of silver catch his eyes, like they did just yesterday night.

His stomach does that weird, treacherous flip again.

Suga is looking at them, rooted on his spot on the blanket he doesn’t make to join them, as though afraid to intrude. But he’s smiling too and it’s tender, like Daichi has never seen it.

“Watch the clouds with us, dad!” Ayame proclaims, she’s already decided, she’s already pushing him toward the blanket, and toward Suga. Daichi lets her.

He sits next to him, close, for the blanket is not that large, and their fingers brush against each other. By accident, maybe.

Maybe not.

Suga’s cheeks are fastly coloring a soft pink.

“That one’s a flower, you said?” His voice is a little shaky.

“Mmm.”

“Which one, then?”

Daichi looks at the cloud, then again at Suga. “I don’t know, you tell me.”

A thoughtful grin, and dimples.

 

“Are you sure you can’t stay?”

It’s almost time for dinner when Ayame asks. Daichi stops chopping vegetables to hear the answer.

“I can’t, really. I need to work on my thesis,” Suga says from the living room. The rustling of clothes suggests he’s getting ready to leave.

Daichi’s shoulders drops.

“Can’t you work on it tomorrow?”

It’s Kaede now, and just by the sound of his voice Daichi can tell he’s pouting.

“I’m sorry…”

“Please!”

Both of them in chorus. Those kids are ruthless in getting what they want…

“Hey, you two, stop bothering Suga-san. If he says he can’t stay then he can’t, alright?” Daichi calls out to the kids, and makes his way to Suga to accompany him to the gate, like he does every day.

Once they are alone outside, though, he’s the one who can’t help himself.

He stops Suga with a hand on his wrist. “Are you really, really sure?”

Suga snorts, and the amused grin on his face makes his nose crinkle.

“I’m afraid so,” he answers, then hesitates. “And, um, I forgot to bring your jacket, I’m sorry. I left in a hurry and…”

“It’s fine. You can keep it.”

_What?_

Man, he really is an idiot…

Suga shakes his head and looks down to the ground. “I couldn’t. I’ll bring it to you tomorrow, I promise. I’ll write it down somewhere so I won’t forget!”

Daichi stays quiet, he hasn’t heard a single word of what Suga just said.

Because there is a freckle in the crease of Suga’s eyelid.

It’s impossible to notice when his eyes are open wide, it’s so faint it’s hard to make out its shape even under the bright light of the neons. It’s lovely and Daichi curses himself for not seeing it sooner.

Every day, it’s like he’s seeing something new.

Today it’s the freckle on Suga’s eyelid. Yesterday…yesterday it was the sadness in his eyes, the strength in his kindness.

And tomorrow, what will it be?

“But maybe tomorrow?” he blurts out, startling both of them.

Suga blinks at him. The freckle appears again, only for a second. “Um?”

“I mean, today you can’t stay…but maybe, maybe tomorrow you could?”

Suga tenses under his eyes, under his hand, and Daichi holds in a breath, releases it only when Suga smiles again.

It’s defeated now, but not sad, not really. It’s like Suga’s giving up a fight he knows he can’t win. Daichi knows what that feels like. “Tomorrow, then.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course, Daichi-san.”

Now he’s really whispering it in the air between them.

_Of course, Daichi-san._

Except, it doesn’t feel quite right.

“Daichi,” he says. “After yesterday…well, drop the –san.”

Suga smiles.

“Of course, _Daichi_.”

And with this he goes, walks out of the gate leaving a trail of goosebumps along Daichi’s arms.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm back! I'm sorry for the delay, but I can officially tell you we have entered the second ''arc'' of the story!  
> The freckle on Suga's eyelid, like baby Kaede watching the dark in silence and the apron with birds and butterflies, is a little ''autobiographical'' detail.  
> More fantastic art inspired by this fic, seriously you people are too much! [Here](http://matteole.tumblr.com/post/147087319858/for-thewindraisers-story-the-blossoms-just-in) is a wonderful comic of Suga's dream, and [here](http://dieraposa.tumblr.com/post/148956374276/fanart-from-the-fic-the-blossoms-just-in-time) a beautiful art of our heroes (look at how pretty Ayame and Kaede are, just perfection!)


	14. Guard your hope with your life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tomorrow, and the day after, and all those that follow.

Tomorrow becomes the day after and the others to follow.

Tomorrow is dinners where everyone is laughing too hard, talking too loud, and then quiet, hushed conversations before dirty dishes. It’s video games, and screaming and arguing because _someone_ just doesn’t know how to lose. It’s movie nights and too short car rides, Daichi refusing to let Suga take the train after 10.

It even becomes early morning runs in the Yoyogi Koen park, when the kids are staying with Yurika-san. If it were anybody else, waking Suga up at ass o’ clock in the morning for an activity that involves a lot of sweating but no orgasm as the final reward he would honestly eat them alive. But it’s Daichi-san, wait, just Daichi now, and Suga is not strong enough to say no to yet one more opportunity to spend time with him.

Still…                                         

“I hate you,” he pants, already out of breath and flushed in the cheeks after ten minutes. “I hate you so much.”

Daichi laughs and starts running backwards so he can revel in Suga’s misery more easily.

He looks wonderful like this, in loose running shorts and tight tank top, beads of sweat trailing down his temples and a smug grin on his lips. Backlit by the sun. The muscles of his thighs ripple with his every move, his chest stretches the fabric of the shirt every time he breathes in. He looks wonderful and Suga hates him for this too.

“Hey, _you_ were the one who said you were out of shape,” Daichi sing-songs – he actually sing-songs.

“I was complaining, Daichi. Complaining doesn’t imply wanting to do something about it, in fact complaining pretty much negates it, in that if I do something to rectify my situation then I won’t be able to complain anymore.”

“You do know complaining is a bad thing, right?”

Daichi has pretty much stopped, running in place to wait for him.

Suga sprints to reach him and as soon as they are close enough he flicks him on the forehead, sudden and painful.

“Ow, what the hell-”                                              

“Complaining is cathartic, Daichi.”             

“And you flicked me why?”

“I needed to get my message across.”

Daichi turns his back to Suga and begins to run again. “Oh it’s received, Suga.”

Something in his tone makes alarms go off inside Suga’s head. In one swift move he skips sideways, but not quick enough.

Daichi pinches him, right on the curve of his hip. Suga yelps.

“Hey!”

“What? I’m just trying to get _my_ message across.”

Suga rubs his hip and glares at the man next to him. “And what is your message?”

A smirk, and now it’s a pleasant shiver down Suga’s spine that alerts him of the trouble he’s getting in.

Daichi takes a sudden step toward him. “Never flick a man who can outrun you.”

Before his words can even register into Suga’s brain Daichi is on him. Arms around Suga’s waist, he lifts him like he’s made of feathers, and marches toward the pond in long steps.

“No, no, no!” Suga screeches and kicks his legs to make Daichi lose balance.

Doesn’t work. Daichi’s arms only tighten around Suga’s waist, his hot breath against the column of Suga’s throat just the slightest bit strained.

Have they ever been this close?

Suga can smell the faint perfume of Daichi’s cologne – or is it his body wash? – mixed with sweat and grass. He closes his eyes just for a moment and clears his throat in an attempt to focus.

The sun reflecting on the calm waters of the pond winks teasingly at him.

Suga tries to reason with him next.

“Oh come on, you are not seriously thinking of doing this…”

“I took great offense when you flicked me, Sugawara.”

Laughter in his voice. Suga relaxes, it’s all a bluff.

And yet the blue/grey water keeps getting closer and closer. And still, he can’t let Daichi think he can win so easily against him. It’s a matter of pride.

It’s a second. Daichi loosens his hold on him for a second to change his grip on him, and Suga knows this is his chance to break free.

He kicks back, in direction of Daichi’s legs. It’s not a hard hit, not at all, but it’s enough to startle Daichi into dropping him.

Suga’s feet touch the ground and he sprints away from his captor.

“Hey!” Daichi yells at him.

Suga doesn’t even turn his head to look at him. He hears the grass crunch under the man’s feet, he quickens his pace.

They run around the perimeter of the pond, the people sitting on the benches all around blink at them. Some huff, some roll their eyes, a couple of them even point and laugh.

They must look like a couple of fools.

Suga keeps running, a goofy grin on his face.

“Come back here, Suga. I was just joking, I promise.”

Suga shakes his head hard, then yells, “No, no I don’t believe your lies anymore!”

“What?”

Turning around to face Daichi again Suga starts to run backwards, the way Daichi had done just minutes before. “I’m not stupid, Daichi. You think I don’t know that if I die, cause an accident, you’ll be the only beneficiary to my life insurance policy?”

Daichi blinks at him. Suga speaks louder, so the old lady sitting on the bench near him will hear. “Drowning in a pond, what could sound more accidental? But you made a grand mistake.”

He meets the old woman’s gaze, then Daichi’s again. “There are people here, Daichi, there are witnesses!”

Daichi gapes at him, looks at the old woman who is now shaking with repressed laughter, then his eyes narrow with intent.

Oh-oh.

Suga makes to turn away and run but before he can take a single step Daichi is already on him. This time he only locks an arm around Suga’s waist and pushes him roughly against his body. His free hand goes to cover Suga’s mouth, unexpectedly gentle.

“I won’t be able to show my face here again because of you,” he hisses in Suga’s face but his voice trembles with the urge to laugh. There are already telltale lines around the corners of his eyes.

Suga smiles under Daichi’s hand, unapologetic.

“Damn it, Suga. You really do whatever you want…”

_I wish. I wish I could._

If it were as Daichi tells it, Suga would have already slapped his hand away and covered his lips with his own. If he really could do whatever he wanted, he’d take Daichi away, away from all these people, from all these strangers’ eyes, and, hidden behind a bush, he’d kiss him stupid until their lungs burned with the need of air.

As it is all he can do is stay in Daichi’s arms, helpless in the open for everyone to see, breathing hard on his palm, his chest brushing against Daichi’s with every inhale.

“If I let you go,” Daichi whispers to him, so close Suga can see the patches of stubble on his chin, the spots he forgot to shave this morning, “will you promise not to yell anything embarrassing about me anymore?”

Suga nods. Yeah, these people, and that woman in particular, experienced more than enough excitement for a day, he reckons.

Daichi nods back and releases him with a smug grin. “If I had known it would take chasing you to get you to run like that I would have tried to throw you in the pond much sooner.”

Suga nods at the woman still staring at them with interest. “Careful what you say, Daichi. Some people might misinterpret…”

Daichi follows the direction of Suga’s gaze and plasters his most charming smile on his face. “Good morning. Nice day, isn’t it?”

The old lady shakes her head and coughs to hide a chuckle. “Sure is, but thanks to your little show I haven’t gotten the chance to feed those poor ducks yet.”

The message is clear, they don’t need to be told twice.

Quick, they move out of the way and walk off slowly, biting their lips to stifle laughter.

“You see what you did, Suga? Because of you those poor ducks got their breakfast late!”

“I know, I know. Do you think I should apologize to them?”

“I think you should.”

“Thought so. Well, I think I’ll start with this one who’s been following us around for the past five minutes.”

He makes to turn but sudden, Daichi’s hand stops him, gripping his arm tightly.

Suga glances at him and frowns at the way the man has paled.

“Um, Daichi?”

“Run,” comes a soft hiss.

“What? What is going on?”

But Daichi doesn’t need to answer. There’s a sudden rustle of wings behind them and Suga throws a look behind his shoulders, alarmed, just in time to see the duck flying menacingly toward them.

“Oh my God-”

Daichi takes Suga’s hand and all but drags him away.

They run and run, until they reach the ginkgo forest. The immense trees provide welcome shelter, their branches so low the duck keeps bumping into them, and only when the quacking stops, only when they are sure, 100% sure that they’ve lost it, they let themselves fall on the grass, hidden behind the trunk of a large tree, shoulder to shoulder and breathing hard.

“What…the…fuck?” Suga wheezes, his heart feels like it’s going to explode in his chest.

Damn it, he said he was out of shape, didn’t he? Usually after you’ve spent years doing nothing more wearying than getting empty carton boxes out of the fridge, instructors suggest you start slow, not to put too much strain on your body. But of course on his first day of jogging he just _had_ to be chased by a possessed, bloodthirsty duck come straight from hell.

A _duck_.

Suga feels Daichi fall quiet beside him and looks at him. Daichi does the same.

Their eyes meet. Suga opens his mouth to speak but suddenly, out of nowhere, he’s laughing, and Daichi with him.

A duck. A freaking duck. They were being chased by a duck.

Not something cool or dangerous, like a cheetah or a wolf, a bear. A vindictive poltergeist. No, no, it was a duck.

“Oh my- I can’t believe-”

He covers his mouth with his hands, oh God he’s doing his embarrassing laugh, the one that sounds like he’s swallowed a baby seal.

“What is wrong with that thing?” he asks at last, between pants. His cheeks are wet with tears, his throat itches, his abs hurt. Well, his stomach hurts, he has no abs to speak of. “Why does it hate you?”

Daichi props himself on his arm so he’s looking down at Suga and gives him an awkward shrug. “I think, um, I think I hurt its feelings some time ago…”

And he tells a heartbreaking tale of one-sided love, rejection, and how far people – or, in this case ducks – can go when they’ve been hurt.

“I swear I was polite about it,” Daichi tries to reassure him, or maybe he’s just trying to convince himself, “I walked her to her pond, I apologized. I thought she’d taken it well, you know? No hard feelings and all that. But the next time I come here she all but attacks me, completely out of nowhere…”

Suga hides his face in his shoulder to repress a giggle and misses the smug look Daichi gets on his face for having made him laugh.

“Well, but you gotta see it from her point of view: this is her home, her safe haven. And you, the man who rejected her, keep showing up, making her relive what was probably the hardest day of her life…”

Daichi nods at Suga’s words, an almost solemn expression on his face. “Never thought of it this w-”

A noise rises from the bushes on their left. Daichi falls quiet.

“Do you think it’s _her_?” Suga whispers, torn between being suitably terrified and amused.

Daichi shushes him and moves toward him. He plants a hand on the ground near Suga’s side and leans forward, almost to shield him.

They stay in silence, waiting, ready to bolt. If it weren’t for how close Daichi’s face is to his own Suga is sure he would be already laughing his ass off, so loud it’d echo all the way to Meiji. As it is, he can’t even seem to catch his breath.

Leaves shake and giggles erupt from the moving bushes.

Ok, so it’s pretty safe to say that’s not the duck from hell.

And sure enough, there appears a guy dragging his girlfriend along by the wrist. “Come on, nobody is going to see us her-um…”

He stops, and the girl with him, at the sight of Daichi who is pretty much above Suga now, covering him with his body.

Pretty much, but not quite.

Still, it’s clear how it looks.

_God, I wish…_

“Oh, um, sorry dudes!”

The girl stands on her tippy toes to look over her boyfriend’s shoulders and blushes. “S-sorry,” she mutters too and now it’s her turn to drag the boy away. Not before throwing them another glance or two from behind her shoulders, though.

Suga clears his throat, it feels drier than the desert.

“Well, better than the satanic duck for sure…” he tries to joke but if the uncertainty in Daichi’s gaze is of any clue then the light trembling of his voice didn’t go unnoticed.

Daichi moves away slowly and the tips of his fingers skim across the bare skin of Suga’s stomach.

And that’s enough. It’s enough to make Suga’s skin, his entire body tingle like an asleep limb, except Suga has never felt more awake, more aware of his body, of himself. He breathes out and now it’s Daichi’s palm pressed against his stomach, calloused and impossibly hot.

Suga’s eyes zero in on the nervous bob of Daichi’s throat, of their own accord, and he feels dizzy with it. The euphoria of this touch, of this moment.

Daichi blinks down at him and just for a second his fingers curl on Suga’s stomach. Just for a second. Then, just as it began it’s over.

Daichi moves away, rolls on the grass to lie on his back and his hand closes into a fist along his side. “Sorry,” he says, so soft the morning breeze threatens to cover it.

“It’s alright.”

It’s not.

Suga tugs his shirt down, so his middle is covered once again.

They stay there for a while, in silence. The sun rises a bit more, becomes a little warmer, a little more blinding. It’s only the alarm on Daichi’s clock going off that forces them to move.

Daichi is the first to stand up, pats the backs of his shorts to get some dirt off, then turns and offers his hand to Suga. Suga takes it and Daichi pulls him to his feet, again with the same ease as before, as if Suga were made of light.

They walk together to the station, Daichi insists on it even though now he’ll have to go back to get to his house.

“I rented Lord of the Rings,” he says out of nowhere while they wait for Suga’s train to arrive, “all three movies.”

Suga can’t help a chuckle at that. “You must be the only man in Tokyo who still rents movies, instead of simply watching them on streaming.”

“I don’t like watching movies on the computer, it feels like I’m missing the experience.”

“Anyway, I was thinking…you said they are not exactly children friendly movies so I thought maybe I’d watch them tonight…”

He’s staring at Suga, and aside from the nerves, obvious in the way Daichi is rubbing the back of his neck, Suga can’t read him. “Yeah, that’s a good idea,” is all he says.

Daichi huffs and passes a hand through his hair. He’s blushing now, a little.

“No, I mean…would you come? Watch them with me?”

“Oh.”

Suga’s hope is taking roots. And each day these roots become stronger, they twist and turn around Suga’s heart, feed off every missing beat, every anomalous switch of pace. He’d said he didn’t want this, in Mrs. Devaux’s shop he’d pleaded her not to give him hope but now it blooms and Suga loves it. He loves the way it makes him feel, just as much as he hates it. Almost as much as it scares him.

The train arrives and Suga waits till the last call, the beep that warns that the doors are closing to step in.

“Yes. Yes. I’ll come.”

Suga watches Daichi through the window, only the sun rays, cruel in his eyes, force him to look away.

Daichi doesn’t move from his place on the platform till the train has disappeared behind a sharp curve.

 

*

 

 

He did it.

He asked Suga over to…watch a geeky movie with him, alone. It doesn’t mean anything, it’s not meant to mean anything, except…

Just a crush, Mai had said. Nothing to worry about, when it’s still so new.

He’s not so sure now. Because he lied.

He didn’t rent Lord of the Rings, hell he’s not even sure there are shops in his neighborhood that still do that. It was the first thing to come to his mind then, as they were waiting for the train. Suga was going back to his apartment and they wouldn’t see each other till Monday and a sort of dread had started to build inside of him.

It’s more than simply not wanting to be alone tonight. It’s more than missing the kids. Suga was the first person he’d thought of, he was the only person Daichi had thought of, because he didn’t want two whole days to pass before he got to see him again.

Just a crush…

Google tells him there is a place in Ikebukuro that rents movies. Daichi writes the address down on a jellyfish-shaped post-it and this too, causes a pang in his chest.

God, he’s way into his head.

He shoves the piece of paper on his pocket and goes.

The place is small but well-organized, the lights are nearly blinding, except for the far corner where a black tent separates the porn section from the rest.

Daichi does his best not to even look, goes so far as to turn his back to it when he discovers the fantasy section is right by it.

An amused, almost derisive snort resounds in the closed space of the shop and Daichi looks to his right to see a tall, gangly man with bright red hair struggling to keep a straight face.

Great, he just made a complete fool of himself in front of a complete stranger.

Flushing and cursing himself under his breath Daichi hunches down the display and makes a show of reading every title of every movie before him.

“Can I help you, sir?”

Again it’s the guy with questionable red hair. He works here then, this just keeps getting better and better.

“Yes, yeah,” Daichi clears his throat and stands to his full height, in an attempt to look more confident than he really feels. It is, of course, useless because next to this guy, who is probably pushing 190 cm, he must look like a midget in any case.

How he hates needlessly tall guys.

“I’m looking for Lord of the Rings.”

“Which one?”

Uh…

He knows they are three but quite frankly he has absolutely no clue what each of them is called. One of them is the Twin Towers, or something…

“All of them?” he says at last, it sounds more like a question than a statement.

The guy snickers again, but this time it’s just amused. “Alright.”

They were at the bottom shelf, so not really in Daichi’s line of sight. The guy picks them up with a flourish and hands them to Daichi.

“Good choice, real classics.”

“Thanks.”

Daichi scans the cover. Curly-haired guy with disturbingly wide eyes, old man with a beard – Gandalf? Maybe? – beautiful woman with a white hood…

“Which one is Erwen?”

“You mean Arwen?”

Daichi blinks up at the guy and shrugs. He was pretty sure that guy had called Suga ‘Erwen’ but maybe he heard wrong.

“It’s this one,” the guy tells him, points at the other beautiful woman on the cover, with long dark hair and pointy ears.

“Oh?”

That guy really was hammered to call Suga that…

Daichi nods at the guy and just as he passes him by he catches sight of the name tag on his chest. Satori. He almost walks in another display.

_There must be tons of guys in Tokyo named Satori. Surely it can’t be…_

He goes to the register, but he can’t help another glance at the man. Or three.

_He_ _doesn’t_ _look_ _like_ _he_ _could_ _be_ _Suga’s_ _type_ , he thinks to himself.

Even his inner voice sounds bitter.

But then again, he has no clue what is Suga’s type. All he knows is…well, he used to have a crush on Ukai Keishin, apparently. It’s been ten years since Daichi last saw Keishin but he’s nothing like this guy.

Doesn’t matter though. Doesn’t matter because 1) it’s not him, 2) it’s none of Daichi’s business who Suga chooses to…be intimate with.

“You have two weeks to return them, otherwise you’ll have to pay a fee…” the cashier is telling him.

Daichi nods along and shoves the DVDs in the plastic bag the guy hands him. He pats his pockets for his wallet and starts counting bills.

“Yo, Tendou,” the cashier calls out all of a sudden.

The guy from before – _Satori_ -  makes his way to them. “Yeah?”

“What are you still doing here? I thought you had a date…”

Daichi already has the money in his hands. He keeps looking around in his pockets, rooted on his spot by the registers, ears pricked up like those of a German Shepherd.

_There_ _is_ _no_ _way_ _it’s_ _him_ , _logically_ , he tries to tell himself.

The world is not that small.

“It wasn’t a date, I told you I don’t do that,” Tendou Satori is saying, annoyance obvious in his voice.

Tendou’s friend picks on the same thing Daichi did.

“Wasn’t, uh?”

Silence.

Then a burst of  laughter. “You got stood up!”

From the corner of his eye Daichi sees Tendou glower at his ‘’friend’’. Sudden, a bout of sympathy blooms…that dies out just as abruptly as the cashier’s next words reach Daichi’s ears.

“Wow, didn’t think Sugawara had it in him…”

Coins drop from Daichi’s fingers and tinkle meeting the ground.

It’s him, it really is him…

Bloody hell.

Daichi throws the money for the movies on the counter and hunches down to collect the rest. They keep slipping through his fingers, fuck, his head is a mess. A shadow casts itself on the sparkling white linoleum floor and Satori – _the_ Satori -  kneels down too to help him.

Daichi chews the word and then spits it out. “Thanks.”

“No prob.”

He nods. In silence he shoves the coins in his pocket, takes the movies and leaves the shop, eyes stubbornly fixed straight ahead.

 

*

 

 

Suga showers as soon as he gets back from the run, and only when he’s sure the noise of the shower jet and of the water drops hitting the stone tiles will cover him he leans back on the bathroom wall and groans.

Daichi-san asked him to watch a movie at his house. Wait, not Daichi-san. _Daichi_.

There is a difference. Of course there is, because Daichi-san would have never…that is, his employer would have never asked Suga to come watch Lord of the Rings – _all_ _three_ _movies_ – with him, alone.

Alone.

Oh God, like this it sounds so much like a date.

It’s not though, it’s not. No matter how nervous Daichi looked when he asked, or how breathless Suga feels just thinking about it. It’s not, because it’s not.

Daichi has Inoue-san, and if he feels…if Mrs. Devaux was right then surely it’s just a stupid thing, due to them spending so much time around each other.

Yes, that’s what it is. On Daichi’s part, at least.

Suga scrubs his skin hard, and pretends it has nothing to do with his last thought.

His skin is pink like that of a shrimp by the time he steps out, something that Tooru doesn’t fail to comment on.

“Your dad called, by the way. Like two minutes after you went in the bathroom,” he says and turns his omelette with a too enthusiastic flick of his wrist, that causes pretty much half of it to fall on the counter instead.

“Oh, shoot.”

Suga rolls his eyes and grabs his phone, sitting on the kitchen table dangerously close to the edge. He walks to his room and almost trips on Onyx, who’s running toward the kitchen, drawn by Tooru’s curse.

“Stay away, you furry monster!”

Yeah, she was probably hoping she’d manage to steal some omelette. What a fiend.

Suga closes the door behind the ruckus and breathes in. He sits down on the bed, still only in his bathrobe, and calls his father with another deep sigh.

In the past week he managed to call five times, and with the exception of the first time, the day after his and Daichi’s…encounter, his father always answered on time. With his usual, quiet ‘hey, Koushi’ he’d ask about the thesis – yes, dad, it’s going well, Fukunaga-sensei is sure I’ll be able to defend it in August – and about his work – the kids are great, I’m lucky, I don’t have that much to do – about Tooru and Taka, and even about Onyx.

And Suga…Suga only ever answers. The most he contributes to the conversation is ask about his father’s work, and about grandma’s health. He took a step forward, telling someone – telling _Daichi_ -  about her, but now, with every time that he doesn’t have the guts to ask it’s like he’s taking ten back.

He’s back to where he started, back in the same spot he’s been stuck in for 20 years.

“Hey, Koushi.”

Suga jumps at his father’s voice resounding in his ear. “Hey, dad. Hi.”

His father laughs. “You sound strange, don’t tell me you just woke up…”

“No, no, I was already up. I went running this morning.”

“That’s good to hear, kiddo.”

Suga puts his father on speaker and stands up. Shrugs off his wet bathrobe and looks around for some clean clothes. He finds none. That’s weird, he could have sworn the chair was covered in it this morning…

“Yeah, it was nice. The weather was great for it.”

“Here too it’s been sunny all week. Did you go alone?”

He almost trips with a foot already in the leg of his boxers. “Uh…”

“Koushi? Are you there?”

“Yeah, yeah. I went with Daich- um, with Sawamura-san.”

A pause. Suga can almost hear the gears in his father’s brain turn. “Sawamura-san as in your employer Sawamura-san?”

“Yeah…”

Suga clears his throat, he doesn’t know why he’s so on edge. “We are friends.”

“Friends? With your boss?”

It’s weird, the way his father asks.

“Yes, friends with my boss. What’s hard to believe about that?”

“Nothing, Koushi.”

“He’s a good man, you know?”

“I’m sure he is, I just remember your last job. You were friends with Kobayashi-san too and look how that turned out.”

Right. Of course his dad would bring up Kobayashi-san. The prick who fired him, after two years spent working at his bookstore, because he saw him kiss another guy while he was on a date with his wife. When he first found out, his dad had threatened to come down to Tokyo to have a ‘’little chat’’ with the man. It had only been Suga’s pleas to dissuade him.

The simple thought of him is enough to make Suga snap.

“Dai- Sawamura-san is nothing like Kobayashi-san, believe me. And I wasn’t friends with Kobayashi-san, alright? I was friendly with him, there’s a difference.”

From the other side of the line his father sighs. “If you say so.”

“I know so, dad. Sawamura-san is…”

Wonderful. Caring. Reliable.

“He is nice,” he says at last, almost too soft for his father to hear.

“Then I trust you, Koushi.”

It doesn’t sound like he does, though. In fact, he’s never sounded more uncertain. “I just worry. You are…a good judge of character, you are smart, but sometimes I fear you are too willing to see the good in people. You give them too many chances to hurt you.”

_I don’t want to hear it from you_ , he almost says.

_You married a woman capable of leaving you and your 4 years old son alone. Worst of all, you are still waiting for her to come back. How can you lecture anyone on placing trust in the wrong hands?_

He doesn’t say any of that.

He asks about work instead. He asks about the pieces his father is restoring – a beautiful mahogany chest of the early ‘20s, a vanity table with vine engravings – and of grandma’s health.

Nothing more.

But before hanging up his father asks him to come home in a couple of weeks to help him organize his stand at the flea market and Suga accepts at once, nostalgia and nerves locked in an off-tempo waltz in his stomach.

It’s his chance, he knows. His chance to finally get some answers. And he’ll take it, he promises himself that he will.

His phone buzzes again in his hand and he nearly drops it on the floor.

It’s not his dad now, but Daichi.

_Oh, shit._

it says on the cover that these movies last three hours each. maybe you should come by around 13:00?

First, though, he needs to survive today. An entire day with Daichi. From early afternoon to late evening. Good God, that’s a lot of Daichi.

In the good way, which is also the worst possible way.

He hastily puts his bathrobe on again – seriously where the fuck are all his clothes? – and runs out of his bedroom, phone still in his hand and hair dripping wet. “Tooru!” he bellows.

The man in question almost chokes on the juice he’s sipping. “Wha’?”

“I need you to pick me up tonight.”

“Why? Where are you going?”

“Um…”

“You got a hot date, perhaps?”

“NO.”

Tooru flinches. Suga clears his throat and tries not to meet his eyes. If he does, he’ll crumble. If he does, Tooru will know.

No,” he repeats, quieter. “No, I, um. I need you to pick me up from Sawamura-san’s house tonight.”

“I thought the kids were with their mother today?”

“They are, I just…I need to help Sawamura-san with something.”

Tooru smirks, slow and smug and irritating. “I see,” he drawls. He actually dares drawl.

Oh God, he knows. He already knows and Suga is doomed.

“No, you don’t see anything. There is nothing to see, so come pick me up tonight, at around 10 and let’s never speak of this again.”

“Wait, wait. I’ll pick you up if you need but if you really think we are not going to talk about whatever this is that is going on between you and-”

Suga turns around and locks himself in the bedroom, for the second time in five minutes.

“You are sorely mistaken!” comes Tooru’s voice through the wall, as smug and as irritating as his smirk.

Suga throws himself on the bed and presses his face against the pillow, to muffle yet another defeated groan.

 

*

 

 

Here’s what Daichi knows: Suga cancelled a date to be with h- to _watch_ _a_ _movie_ with him. Suga didn’t mention having other commitments at the station, he simply accepted Daichi’s invitation. Suga put off the concrete possibility of sex to watch a movie about dwarves and elves and God knows what else. With him.

And lastly, he knows what Satori looks like. The guy who left Suga his number on a piece of paper, who gets to go on dates with him, take him out for coffee without having to worry about what’s appropriate and what not, about their respective positions, their age.

Daichi gulps down his tea in one big sip and it’s still scalding. He barely even notices.

What would it be like, between them, if after every day spent in Suga’s company Daichi didn’t have to second-guess his every word, the way his touch had lingered on the crook of Suga’s arm, around his wrist?

Just a crush. Right.

Then why the hell is his hand still tingling hours later he’d rested it on the bare skin of Suga’s stomach?

He has moles there too, Suga. One near his navel, Daichi had skimmed it with his palm when Suga had breathed under him, and the other one low, lower, disappearing under the waistband of his sweatpants.

Daichi’s hands clench on the counter, soon they turn white.

He concedes himself one last sigh, one last moment of weakness to recall the way Suga had looked in that moment, then marches upstairs to pick something to wear.

Jeans, that’s an easy pick. Slacks would be far too formal, even if this were a date – and it isn’t, it _isn’t_ -  watching a movie is not something that calls for tailored pants. Of course, since this isn’t a date and he won’t be leaving his house he could wear sweatpants, soft, comfy, casual. But no, no he can’t. He doesn’t want to look like he didn’t try at all.

So jeans it is.

He frets for a moment over a shirt too, before his eyes fall to the back of his closet, where his older shirts are stacked. He tries a couple of them on, others he can tell just by looking at them that they won’t fit. Then he stumbles upon an old, black T-shirt. It’s a little faded, but clean, but most importantly it’s tight. On his chest, on his arms.

It’s perfect. Casually perfect.

Maybe this Satori guy has, like, five feet on him but Daichi has other things going for him…

Oh God, why is he even thinking it like this?

He passes a hand through his hair and starts to clean up the mess he made. If only it were this easy too with the mess that’s in his head…

He throws a fleeting look into the mirror. Still, the black shirt is staying.

 

*

 

 

“What do you mean by ‘it’s laundry day so I took all the clothes that were on your chair’?”

Tooru pales at the foreboding calmness in Suga’s voice.

“Exactly what I said?”

Suga takes a step forward. Tooru takes one back.

“So you took _all_ my clothes?”

“No, not all your clothes. Just the ones on the chair…”

_Deep breaths, Suga. Murder wouldn’t solve anything. Deep breaths._

“The chair,” he hisses, “is where I put all the clothes that fit me, because that shitty excuse of a closet is too small to fit all the clothes I own.”

“Oh…”

“Yes, oh.”

Suga turns on his heels and gets back to his bedroom. He pushes the doors of the wardrobe open with so much force they squeak and slam and, yeah, sure enough there is nothing he can wear here.

Half the space is taken by his gym bag, the one from his Karasuno days that he still hasn’t gathered the courage to throw away. The other half is a mess of faded, old jeans that either fall off of him or can’t be pulled up past his hips. Fuck.

“You know, um, it’s really not my fault you can’t throw this crap out to make space for decent clothes-”

Tooru has followed him in the bedroom and is now sitting down on the chair. The chair.

Suga glares at him and at once he springs to his feet and goes to lie on the bed instead.

His point stands, though.

Suga’s shoulders drop and he rests his forehead on the cold of the mirror on the inside the closet door. “You are right, of course you’re right.”

“But still, why couldn’t you just ask me if that stuff was dirty? I was in the shower, you could have knocked and asked instead of just taking twenty different things between jeans and shirts and throw them in the washer!”

Silence. The bed springs creak and Tooru throws an arm around Suga’s waist. “Sorry, Suga-chan.”

“Whatever, don’t apologize. It’s creepy when you sound all honest like that.”

“You spend way too much time with Iwa-chan, Koushi. Just now you sounded exactly like him.”

“Shut up and help me pick up something to wear.”

 

*

 

 

Suga is wearing a skirt.

Daichi blinks at him, accepts the cookies he brought – “I made too many, I thought maybe you could help me finish them?” – and steps aside to let him in.

Yep, from behind too it’s…still a skirt. Flouncing with every step Suga takes, rising flirtily to show off the backs of his thighs. Or it would, if Suga didn’t have leggings on.

“You are wearing a skirt.”

It spills out, breathless and a little rough. Suga turns to face him and his cheeks have already taken a red hue and Daichi wants to punch himself square in the face.

“Yeah, um, it was laundry day today.”

“Oh.”

“I had nothing else to wear…”

“Of course.”

They stare at each other, only for a moment, then Suga looks down at his skirt, tugs the hem down to his knees. As soon as he lets it go it bounces back up again, and even through the thick fabric of the leggings Daichi notices the wonderful shape of Suga’s legs.

The line of his calves. His fine ankles. Toned thighs that, Daichi has no doubts, are soft on the inside.

“I could change?”

Suga’s voice reaches him from universes away. Daichi blinks again – _what_ _a_ _way_ _to_ _look_ _smart_ _in_ _front_ _of_ _your_ … _Suga_.

“I mean, you would have to lend me a pair of pants…”

Ah, so the choice here is between Suga in a skirt and Suga in his clothes. Well, that’s…

Suga moves around the living room, drops his bag on the couch, then turns again toward him. The skirt spins and rises up to his mid-thigh…

“Go change!”

Suga jumps and Daichi clears his throat, forces his voice to come out just a little less squeaky.

“Yeah, I think you should, if you are not comfortable with the…with the skirt, I mean we’ll be sitting so it could…” - _rise_ _up_ _even_ _more –_ “I- I have plenty of pants, that you could borrow, that is.”

Suga is gaping at him. His eyes wide, it’s like this is the first time he’s seeing Daichi.

For sure, this is the first time he’s seeing 15 years old Daichi. Because apparently, somewhere between getting ready for his non-date with Suga and answering the door he discovered the secret to time travelling and who is actually standing here, saying these words, is him of circa 20 years ago. Before he became a lawyer, before he got married and had two kids.

Before he became a respectable adult who doesn’t turn into a babbling idiot whenever pretty doe eyes stare into his.

“Alright, then I guess I’ll change…”

Daichi nods and leads Suga upstairs in silence. He doesn’t trust himself enough now to utter another word.

They pick up a pair of sweatpants with a chord, because really, those are the only kind of pants that wouldn’t fall right off of Suga, then Daichi tells Suga he’ll get started on lunch and leaves him to get changed.

As soon as he’s reached the loneliness of kitchen he bumps his head on the marble counter.

“You are a father, damn it. You have children.”

Ayame, his _nine_ _years_ _old_ _daughter_ , would have handled it much better.

He is an embarrassment. A complete and utter embarrassment. He should just go live under a rock or something…

“Um, Daichi?”

_Fucking shit._

Daichi straightens, so sudden it gives him a bit of a head rush.

“Woah, there!”

Suga takes a step forward and rests a hand on the small of his back to steady him. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Daichi nods and when he moves to look Suga in the eyes he finds him impossibly close, chin almost resting on Daichi’s shoulder. Their noses bump.

“Are…are you sure?”

_Don’t look at his lips. Don’t. Look. At. His. Lips._

“Uh-uh!”

Suga looks down, then away. Out of nowhere he slaps Daichi’s shoulder, hard.

“Ow!”

“Let’s get started on lunch then! I’m starving!”

He says it in a rush, too chipper to be believable. He is red to the tips of his ears.

This, more than anything, serves to reassure Daichi, if only just a little.

He’s not the only one here that feels...whatever it is he feels. He’s not alone in this.

He’s not.

 

“Stop adding dried peppers to the sauce, Suga! Do you really think I can’t see you?”

Suga rolls his eyes at him and keeps stirring with the jar of dried peppers in his other hand. Daichi turns the chicken wings on the other side to make them color, puts the wooden spoon down and walks to him.

“No!”

Suga tries to hide the peppers behind his back, but to no avail. All it takes for Daichi is to pinch his side until Suga squirms and makes to swat his hand away, then he takes both Suga’s wrists in his hand – _they_ _are_ _so_ _thin_ \- and takes the jar for himself.

“You can add more later, to your own portion, if it still doesn’t feel strong enough to set your mouth on fire!”

Suga pouts at him, and even goes so far as to stomp his foot in protest. “You really can’t handle a little spice in your life, Sawamura!”

“I have _you_ in my life, that’s all the spice I’m ever gonna need.”

Suga averts his eyes to check on the sauce again. His hair falls to cover his face, like always, but it’s still clear, the edge of his smile. “You should write this one down, Daichi. It’s a good line.”

“You think so?”

“Oh yeah, you could…you could use it on Inoue-san.”

Daichi puts the jar of peppers down, away from Suga’s reach, and shrugs. “I don’t think it’d work on her.”

_I don’t want it to work on her._

“Oh…”

“Yeah…”

“No, I mean ‘oh, the chicken is burning’!”

“Wha- oh shit!”

They both grab the spoon at the same time, but it’s a little too late because the chicken has already taken an ominous black color on one side.

“Well, I hope you like your chicken wings slightly charred, Suga.”

“It’s more the onions than the chicken itself,” Suga tries to reassure him and quickly puts the wings on a plate, so the smell won’t stick too much to them. “Also, slightly charred is the _only_ way to cook chicken wings, Daichi. Trust me.”

“You are so full of it.”

 

“I don’t trust this guy,” Daichi mutters, ten minutes into Fellowship of the Ring.

Sauce drips down his chin and stains his pants. He doesn’t care.

“Which guy?” Suga asks, eyes fixed on the screen.

Daichi tries to focus on what’s happening in the Sheer – the Shire? – too and not on the way Suga is licking his fingers. He fails.

“This, um,” – _words,_ _make_ _words_ – “this Bilbo Whatshisname, he looks suspicious…”

Suga sucks the tip of his index finger and his lips purse with it, his cheeks hollow in a picture that is familiar, too familiar and suggestive. Daichi swallows, with some difficulty, and squints at the screen.

Boy with disturbingly large eyes appears and he sighs in relief.

_Yeah, concentrate on how creepy you find this dude…_

“Eh, Bilbo is not my favorite either, but The Hobbit is where you really figure him out, you know?”

“The Hobbit? There is no Hobbit here!”

Daichi looks at the DVD covers. Fellowship. Towers. King. No Hobbit.

Did that Satori guy forget to get him one of the movies?

_I knew it, not only is he needlessly tall and smirky, he’s also incompetent._

“That’s a different series. Well, technically it’s the same, The Hobbit is kind of a prequel that explains how what happens in Lord of the Rings came to be but you don’t have to watch them to understand these ones. Also, and that’s just my opinion, they are not nearly as good.”

_Oh, so he didn’t mess up…_

_That’s too bad._

“They? How many movies are there?”

“The Hobbit series is three movies long as well.”

God, Tolkien sure had a lot of things to tell about these hobbits…

Suga laughs when Daichi says it and pats his leg in sympathy. “You should see the size of the books…”

A pause, and Suga finally takes his eyes away from the screen. “And now will you please shush and actually watch the movie?”

Daichi glares at him but Suga only smiles briefly at him and gets back to his beloved hobbits and weird grandpas in hats.

Their knees brush and neither of them makes to move, even though there’s plenty of room left on the couch.

 

Despite it all – namely creepy Frodo and his creepy wide eyes, and even creepier Gollum and his even creepier eyes – Daichi finds himself hooked.

“I knew that guy was evil! He must have been, his eyebrows are way too dark for his beard!”

“Pippin is a moron…”

“Hey, that’s the guy on the cover!”

When Frodo gets stabbed he sucks in a breath and looks at Suga. “He is on the other two covers so surely he can’t die like this, right?”

Suga just smirks at him and shrugs, the complete bastard.

Then, here she comes. Long, dark hair moving in the wind, translucent skin, beautiful lips.

“Oh…”

“Yeah, ‘oh’ is one way to put it.”

“That’s Arwen, right?”

“Uh-uh.”

Daichi watches her save Frodo, engage in a wild ride with the black knights and cause a flood that sweeps them all away. All the while looking absolutely stunning.

“Holy shit.”

Except…

Daichi looks at her, he squints. At one point he even stops the movie to get a better look, which causes Suga to pinch him in protest.

Sure they are both pretty, in a kind of otherworldly way, Suga’s skin glows in a similar way in the moonlight, and they both have perfectly plump, pouty lips but for the rest…

“Alright, I get seeing Arwen for the first time is kind of a sexual awakening of sorts for many men _and_ women but I would really like to see what comes ne-”

“You don’t look like her.”

Suga raises an eyebrow and looks from Daichi to the screen, where Arwen is frozen in one of her characteristic close-ups. “I don’t look like who?”

“Like Arwen.”

“Why would I look like Arwen?”

Now it’s Daichi’s turn to frown. “Because of that guy the other day, remember? That drunk college guy, he called you Arwen, didn’t he?”

Suga groans and rests his head on the back of the couch. “So you heard that…”

“Of course I heard it, I was standing right next to you.”

A pregnant pause. Suga pinches the bridge of his nose. “He didn’t…that guy didn’t call me Arwen, he called me Earwen,” he admits at last.

“And that’s…another character?”

“Yeah.”

“But always from Lord of the Rings?”

“Yes. Earwen is Galadriel’s mother. She, um, she is called the Sea maiden, or Swan maiden of Alqualonde.”

The tips of Suga’s ears are quickly turning a bright red. Daichi shifts on the couch to face him and props his chin on his hand. He doesn’t want to miss a second of this.

“And why did he call you that? Does that guy have some secret, intimate knowledge of the state of your maidenhood?”

Suga punches him in the gut, hard. It hurts and it’s also so totally worth it. Now Suga’s entire face is crimson. “There is no…I’m not a- oh shut up!”

Daichi bursts out laughing and Suga elbows him in the side, moves as far away from him as he can without having to move from the couch. He makes to start the movie again, lips tight in a pout. Daichi stops him circling a hand around his wrist.

“Oh come on! You tease me all the time, but as soon as I do it you sulk!”

“I’m not sulking.”

“Alright, then tell me why that guy called you that!”

Suga huffs. “I don’t know, he was hammered, isn’t that a good enough reason?”

Daichi crosses his arms over his chest and Suga huffs again.

“You are not going to let this go, are you?”

“Nope.”

“You are a pain. Alright, I guess that’s because Earwen is described to have ‘star-like silver hair’…”

“And…” Daichi urges.

_This is going to be good._

“And…oh God, promise me you won’t tell anyone about this…”

“I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Alright, alright,” Suga takes in a deep breath and covers his eyes with a hand, “I already told you how I went to this fantasy convention years ago, right?”

Daichi nods.

“Well, I was supposed to go as Galadriel, right? But once I got there it was so hot and the wig was really itchy so I took it off. My friend Tooru kept telling me how no one would understand who I was now and in a way he was right, because seeing my hair all these fanatics started to praise me for dressing up as a ‘’really obscure character no one remembers’’ and um…”

Another pause, and then…

“Because of that, mine was…voted as one of the best costumes at the convention. I was invited on stage during this sort of catwalk the best cosplayers did, and they even gave me a little cockade for it – which I totally haven’t kept, by the way. I guess that guy saw me then and remembered me, or something.”

“Oh my God.”

Daichi slaps a hand on his mouth to keep from laughing again, and with the other he covers his side, in the spot Suga had hit him before. “This is even better than I could have ever imagined!”

“Shut up!”

“Oh no. You can’t expect me to shut up after that!”

Suga falls with his face on the arm seat and groans again. “I can’t believe you remembered. I was so sure you hadn’t heard!”

Daichi puts a hand on Suga’s calf and pats it comfortingly. “It’s my job, Suga. This is what I do. I listen, I store the information, then use it to my advantage when needed.”

Suga moves and now his leg is resting on Daichi’s lap, his eyes are fixed on his face. “Oh yeah? Then what else do you have on me, Sawamura?”

Daichi smirks, his hand starts to massage Suga’s calf without him even realizing. “Well, first, your nose crinkles whenever you don’t agree with someone but don’t feel like arguing.”

Suga rubs at it. “Oh…”

“Also, you hide your face behind your bangs when you’re embarrassed. I think that’s why you haven’t cut it yet, like you always say you will.”

Suga squirms. “That’s it?”

_And you look impossibly adorable in my ratty sweatpants._

Daichi clears his throat, and reveals himself, just a tiny bit. “You look nice in skirts.”

He says it, but he stamps a smirk on his face, as if to show he’s just teasing.

It works, because Suga kicks his thigh with the leg Daichi is still stroking.

“Yeah, well, you rub the back of your neck whenever you get embarrassed!”

“I do not!”

Suga looks pointedly at his arm, that was rising to do exactly that. Daichi puts it down with a huff.

Silence, embarrassed. Daichi stares stubbornly at the screen, where Arwen is still frozen in time. Suga still hasn’t looked away from him. Daichi doesn’t like how intense, almost contemplative, his gaze has turned.

“I think, um, I think we better keep watching or we’ll never finish all three in one day.”

Suga sighs. “Yeah, I guess you are right.”

He presses start.

 

“Daichi?”

“Mmm.”

“You said ‘mmm’ ten minutes ago. Come on, your phone is ringing, time to wake up!”

Daichi opens his eyes, blinks at the too bright light of the TV. “Alright,” he says, then closes his eyes again.

Insistent hands start to pull at his arm. “It’s Ayame’s number…”

Daichi straightens on the sofa, now fully awake. “Ayame?”

He looks around, grabs the remote and presses it to his ear. Suga gently takes it away from his grasp and replaces it with his still ringing phone.

Ok, so maybe ‘fully awake’ is stretching it a bit.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Judging by the expression on Suga’s face, he will most certainly be the one to ‘mention it’ again, sometime soon. Very soon.

Daichi is already resigned to his destiny. He answers his phone. “Hey, sweetheart.”

From the other side of the line, giggles. “Hi, daddy, you sound weird!”

Daichi clears his throat, his voice comes out just as gruff as before. “Yeah, sorry, I fell asleep in front of the TV…”

“You are such an old man!”

“Oy!”

Ayame chuckles again in his ear and Daichi feels himself smile too. “How are you and your brother doing?”

“Good, good,” – shuffling of some kind, the soft murmur of Kaede’s voice – “Dede wants to say ‘hi’ too so I put you on speakerphone.”

“Hi, daddy!”

“Hey, kid. Is everything alright there? Are you having fun with your mother?”

Beside him, Suga stands up and starts to collect the dirty dishes and bowls on the coffee table. When he notices Daichi’s gaze on him he winks.

Daichi looks away and focuses on his kids’ voices.

“Mom took us to the park!” Ayame is telling him, only now Daichi notices she sounds rather tired.

“Yes, we had a pic nic,” Kaede adds, and _he_ sounds downright exhausted.

Daichi checks the time and curses. It’s already past 10, this means he slept a good couple of hours while Suga was here, as his guest. He invited Suga over and then fell asleep on him.

Oh God, he really is an old man…

“We ate sandwiches,” Ayame finishes and yawns in the middle of her sentence.

“I’m glad you had fun.”

“Mmm,” it’s Kaede now, “it was nice. But Suga-san’s sandwiches are better…”

Daichi smiles and looks back, toward the kitchen, where he can see Suga washing the dishes. It looks like he’s humming a song under his breath, but it’s too faint for Daichi to hear.

“Don’t tell your mother that.”

“No, no. To her we said they were great.”

“Smart kids…”

Ayame yawns again, and with her Kaede. Daichi presses his lips not to follow.

“It’s way past your bedtime,” he whispers instead, even though he usually lets them stay up till 11 on weekends. “You sound pretty tired.”

“Uh-uh, yeah we are already in our pjs,” Kaede tells him, and he probably moves on the bed a little because it’s clear now, the creaking of springs. “But we wanted to wish you goodnight, daddy.”

“Yeah, then we’ll go to sleep. Oh, wait no, we have to text Suga-san goodnight!”

Without thinking much about it, Daichi says “Actually, Suga’s here, you can tell him now.”

“What? You are with Suga-san?” Ayame seems outraged by this.

“Yeah, I invited him to keep me some company…”

“What did you do?” Kaede, just as reproachful.

“We…we watched a movie?”

_Or three…_

“Not fair, dad!”

“Yeah, dad. Now put him on the phone!”

Daichi sputters, then calls Suga. He passes the phone with a scowl still on his face.

He can’t believe he got scolded by his children for spending time with Suga. As if he were the child and they the parents. He is 33 years old, for crying out loud, he can spend his free time with whomever he wants!

“Oh, that sounds nice…” Suga is saying, hands still a little wet. There’s an incredibly pleased smile on his face.

Of course there is, the kids would never scold _him_ …

“Thank you, I do make some mean sandwiches, don’t I?”

He throws a cheeky look Daichi’s way, bites his lip to keep from laughing. “Yes, you could say I’m baby-sitting him. And I’m telling you, he is much more work than you two have ever been.”

“Hey!”

“Yes, yes, alright.”

Suga puts the kids on speakerphone and together they all say goodnight.

“Love you, daddy!”

Alright, he guesses he can forgive them now…

“I love _you_ , so much,” he says. Like he could never stay mad at them.

After a pause, Ayame adds “And you too, Suga-san!” and for a moment Suga just blinks at the phone, breath caught between his lips.

Then he clears his throat and says, soft but clear, “I love you too.”

 

Suga leaves soon after that.

Daichi tries to argue – half joking, half dead serious – that they didn’t get to finish The Return of the King, but when he yawns three times in a row Suga grins at him and starts making his way upstairs to go get changed.

“You look ready to fall asleep on your feet like a horse. Besides, I texted my friend Tooru earlier, he’s already on his way here.”

“Oh, yes, of course.”

He watches Suga climb the stairs and his shoulders drop along with his mood.

It’s 10:30 and he’s exhausted. Even if Suga stayed Daichi would hardly be of much company to him and yet…he doesn’t want Suga to leave. He never wants Suga to leave.

The realization dawns on him, terrifying. Monumental.

It’s true. Every day he sees Suga out of the gate, and every day it gets a little bit harder to watch him go. And it doesn’t matter that they’ll be seeing each other the next day, it’s still the worst part of his evening, every evening.

For how long? How long has it been like that?

He has no fricking clue. He never felt it happen.

“Ok!” Suga appears again, a plastic bag in his hand. “I’ll take your sweatpants with me so I can wash them. And there are still cookies in the box, we didn’t eat them in the end…well, you can have them for breakfast tomorrow!”

Daichi nods, then jumps out of his skin when a car honk breaks the quiet of the evening.

“Damn it, Tooru!” Suga hisses under his breath and hoists his bag on his shoulder.

Daichi accompanies him to the gate, of course, and he’s weirdly aware of how close Suga is walking to him. He shoves his hands in his pocket, but it only serves to make his and Suga’s arms brush against each other.

“Today was nice-”

“I’m sorry I fell asleep on you…”

Suga shrugs and smiles a smile that’s just for him. “It’s alright, I didn’t mind.”

“You don’t mind I fell asleep in your company?”

“Nah, you’re actually much more entertaining when you’re asleep.”

“I’m not sure, but I think you just implied I’m dull.”

They share a look and now Daichi is grinning too.

Another car honk resounds in the dark. Suga rolls his eyes.

“I’m coming!” he barks.

Daichi squints and notices a tall man standing by a car. Even under the faint lights of the lampposts he can tell the guy is handsome. Damn it.

But at least he’s not Satori.

“So…” Suga says, shifts his weight from one foot to the other in what looks a lot like nerves. “See you on Monday.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll bring your sweatpants.”

A pause. “And also your jacket. God, I keep forgetting about it.”

Daichi had forgotten too, to be honest. “It’s alright, keep them both.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll start a collection, every day I’m going to steal an item from your closet till you don’t have anything left to wear.”

“Well, at least like this you won’t have to fear being left with only a skirt on laundry day…”

Suga hits him in the shoulder with his bag. “Shut up!”

It’s a pointed, loud cough this time. Suga winces and tells Daichi a quick goodbye. Daichi does the same, nothing comes to him, nothing he can say to get Suga to stay for just one moment more.

 

*

 

 

“So that’s Sawamura-san.”

Not a question.

Suga nods all the same and lets himself fall back on the car seat. All of a sudden, he’s exhausted.

“Wow,” Tooru says. “Just…wow.”

“I know, believe me, I know.”

‘Wow’ doesn’t even begin to cover it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lovely person made a [playlist](http://fanficgalore.tumblr.com/post/149227637675/the-blossoms-just-in-time-playlist) for blossoms, make sure to listen to it! It's wonderful!


	15. The dizzy dancing way that you feel, part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The storm is coming.

Monday

 

“Rainy season is upon us, so kids, and grown-ups, remember to fish your rubber boots from the back of your closets because, from the looks of it, this will be a very wet month indeed!”

Suga rolls his eyes at the cheerfulness in the speaker’s voice. What kind of person is this chipper at – he checks the clock – 9:30 in the morning?

Probably a person who wasn’t woken up by yet another nightmare and didn’t have to drag their butt out of bed to work on their thesis. Surely a person who didn’t stay awake till 3 thinking about their employer, and how the way said employer has been looking at him lately has changed.

It has changed though…

Has it?

“That’s right, Kenta!” Another voice, just as chipper, joins in. “In fact, this rainy season is going to start much sooner than usual!”

“You’re kidding!”

“You’re kidding!” Suga echoes with distaste.

He flips his pancake with a smooth motion of his wrist.

“No, no. As you can see on the map, the moist air coming from the Pacific is rising quickly, right toward us. And as soon as it meets our cooler continental air mass we’ll see some nice precipitations that’s for sure!”

The other guy again. “You heard it, folks! Starting today make sure you bring your umbrella with you everywhere, because you never know when the monsoon is going to strike!”

“That’s only because you can’t do your bloody job and forecast the weather right!”

“Your silent war against the weather guys continues, I see…”

Suga puts his last pancake on top of the others and covers them all with chocolate sauce. “Always,” he says to Tooru.

Fingers make to collect some of the sauce on his plate and he slaps them away, vicious like usual in the early morning. Yes alright, 9:30 _is_ early morning for him.

“Ow, Kou-chan!”

“Get your own!”

“So mean!”

Suga swallows his first pancake in two bites, eyes fixed on Tooru almost in challenge. “Yup, so mean. So mean I even left you some pancake mix in the fridge.”

Tooru lights up and makes to press a kiss on Suga’s cheek. Suga pushes him away with a hand on his face. “Save these effusions for your boyfriend, Oikawa.”

He expects Tooru to make another attempt, or declare in a high voice how cold Suga is, but all Tooru does is sigh and fall quiet. Suga raises his eyes from his plate and watches him pour pancake mix in a hot pan, shoulders tight under his thin shirt.

“Tooru?”

“Uh?”

“Is…is everything alright?” When Tooru attempts a nod, Suga adds, “between you and Hajime?”

Nothing.

Suga sighs and chews his pancakes. Now they kind of taste like cardboard. He forces himself to finish them all and goes to the sink to wash his plate. He passes a wet cloth three times on the surface of it, and three more times he washes away bubbles of soap. Tooru seems to shrink more with each passing moment. But still, nothing.

Suga takes a dirty glass and starts washing that too, and after it the rest of the dirty plates on the counter. And he waits.

“I think Hajime knows.”

Tooru’s voice comes in a whisper and Suga’s hands freeze around a spoon handle.

“Knows what?” he asks. He already has an inkling – more than an inkling - of what it is Tooru is talking about, but he needs to hear it. And it’s time Tooru admits it as well, out loud, to someone.

It’s time.

Tooru flips his pancake. It’s very nearly burnt. “That I…” he gulps noisily, then sighs. “That I still have…feelings for, for Waka- for _Ushijima_.”

“He saw the videos, the matches I still have saved of…of Shiratorizawa, when Ushijima played with them and he just…he gave me this look, Koushi…”

Tooru’s voice shakes.

Suga dries his hands on his pants and walks to him.

After yet another break-up, a little over a year ago, Tooru had decided to stop waiting, stop sighing and wishing and locking himself in his room to cry and, with Suga’s encouragement, had decided to finally give Ushijima a chance. It had lasted a couple of months, and Tooru had seemed content, if not quite happy. But when Hajime had come back…well, it had been obvious to everyone how this was going to end. Ushijima never stood a chance. Not really.

Tooru had never found the words to tell Hajime about it. And now Suga can see why, in the way Tooru is trembling, in the way he’s avoiding his eyes.

All along this is exactly what Tooru had feared, the reason why he’d tried to deny this – himself – for so long. Tooru hides behind teasing smiles and artfully acted bouts of confidence, but he would rather bleed himself dry than hurt Hajime, in any way. This, fuck, this is not how it was supposed to go…

Suga takes the spatula away from Tooru’s grasp and gathers him in an embrace. What else can he do? What else can he…

They stay like that a while, and Tooru’s pancake keeps burning. More chipper idiots talk from the TV. Suga holds Tooru closer.

Then, out of nowhere, Tooru laughs. It’s uncertain, and a little wet, and when Suga asks him about it, Tooru shrugs and says, “Well, at least I’m not in love with my boss.”

It’s meant to be a joke. A joke to which Suga is meant to answer with snark, a playful slap on Tooru’s shoulder and a fake, outraged yelp.

He hides his face in Tooru’s neck instead, and his hold on him weakens.

Tooru notices. He always does.

“Oh, Koushi…” he mutters in Suga’s hair.

Now it’s his turn to hold Suga close.

 

 

Tuesday

 

“Cats and dogs, as if! It’s raining bloody elephants out there!”

Daichi shakes his umbrella and all but throws it in the stand by the entrance door.

His pants are sticking to his legs, soaking wet from the knee down. His arms too are wet, and his shoes squelch on the marble floors with every step he takes.

Fucking shitty weather. It just changed in the matter of a blink. Walking the kids to school the sun was almost blinding, then out of bloody nowhere BAM! freaking rainstorm.

Thank God Suga had texted him last night to tell him to take an umbrella with him, or he would be discussing deals with his clients while looking like a drowning rat.

Apparently Suga watches the weather report every day, even though he distrusts those guys more than he does lawyers – his words, not Daichi’s. Daichi had called him then to express just how offensive he’d found that statement, but all Suga had done was laugh in his ear – that lovely, musical laughter – and reassure him that he was the only exception.

“Seriously now, I still don’t get how a man like you ended up becoming a lawyer.”

At that Daichi had rested back on his pillow, hiding a smile behind his hand. “A man like me, as in?”

And Suga had stuttered. “W-well, you know...reliable. Trustworthy.”

Growing up with a lawyer, and growing up the kind of kid who thinks his father hangs the moon and all the stars Daichi had never considered doing anything else, although, starting college, his dreams had been a little different.

“I meant to become a defense attorney at the beginning, I…wanted to assist the people who couldn’t afford hiring a high-profile lawyer.”

“Even those who were obviously guilty?” Suga had whispered.

“Everyone deserves a good defense, Suga. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a fair trial.”

Suga had had nothing to say to that, he’d only asked why he gave up, why he settled for...for this.

The answer had been obvious: Ayame. When Yurika had told him she was pregnant he made the conscious decision to change his course. He asked his father to mentor him, and his father did even more, pulled some strings to get him a position as assistant to one of the most requested divorce lawyers in the city.

“Divorce lawyers are much better paid,” he’d concluded and Suga had sighed.

He hadn’t asked him if he regrets his decision now, after years spent doing a job that is as unsatisfying emotionally as it is draining. Because the answer had been obvious: no. Thanks to this job – this draining, unsatisfying job - he got to give his children security, a beautiful home to live in. He did it for his children so no, as much as he hates it, coming here every day, he doesn’t regret it. He never will.

And despite the prospect of another day spent watching couples trying to tear each other apart, despite the weather and the dreadful state of his clothes, today Daichi is smiling.

Because of what Suga had said just last night, a whisper so tender it had seeped through Daichi’s bones.

“You are a wonderful man.”

And he hadn’t taken it back. When Daichi had sputtered a breathless ‘what?’, mind in a frenzy and cheeks on fire, Suga had repeated it. “You are wonderful.”

So Daichi is smiling today. His feet are freezing, his socks are soaked. His suit is stifling, it seems to shrink on his shoulders, more every second. The bust of Watanabe-san has its sightless eyes fixed on him, stern even carved in marble…and Daichi grins at it.

Because to Suga, he’s wonderful.

“Well, good morning to you too, Daichi-san!” Nishinoya sing-songs as soon as he catches sight of him.

“Good morning,” Daichi says back and gives him a quick smile too.

Then he looks around, and sure enough Tanaka is there, standing right outside the door to the surveillance room.

He and Daichi share a look, a simple nod. Tanaka makes no move to come in closer. Daichi doesn’t either, instead he walks to the elevator and soon his back is to him. He sighs in relief when the elevator opens, blessedly empty and he all but throws himself inside, with nothing more than another, stupid nod.

He and Tanaka haven’t said more than an ‘hi’ to each other for the past few days, and it’s all Daichi’s fault, really. He knows that, he _knows_. Still he’s not sure if he’s ready to admit how wrong he was. How stupid he’s been about this, about Suga.

Thing is, he’s not used to play the part of the fool.

His phone buzzes inside his pant pocket and he almost drops his bag in his haste to fish it.

It’s just a promotional text.

He catches sight of his reflection in the metal handles of the elevator and even distorted as it is, it’s unmistakable the disappointment painted on his face.

Not used to play the part of the fool, uh?

Now all he needs is a hat with bells that tinkle with every move he makes.

 

 

Wednesday

 

Rain pelts the glass windows, incessant and stubborn. It hasn’t stopped once since this morning, the sky completely covered by a thick cluster of clouds. From time to time a random bust of wind will rise and howl, making the leaves of the ash trees around the house shake.

Whenever that happens Kaede springs to his feet and runs to the window that gives to the backyard. “Are you sure the plants will be alright, Suga-san?”

He is especially concerned about the wisteria, precariously tangled on the white fence and growing a little each day. They were supposed to plant more plants this week – the honeysuckle for Ayame, some more roses – but for the past few days they’ve all been stuck inside, listening to the rain fall.

“The plants will like it, Kaede-kun. I promise. Now, how about we bake some cookies?”

Sugar is really the only thing that could lighten the mood right now…that children can legally consume.

And sure enough, Ayame is already on her way to the kitchen, a greedy twinkle in her eyes.

“Can we do the chocolate ones, please please please?” she begs as they get ready. Her apron has little ducks on it. Instinctively, Suga shivers.

He’s never going to be able to look at ducks the way he did before.

Suga doesn’t dare wear Daichi’s pink apron, it was a present from Sawamura-san after all, so he’s stuck with ‘Kiss the cook’ again. It’s the only other apron of grown-up size. But it works well for him after all, because as soon as Ayame sees the writing on his chest she gestures for him to lean down and presses a noisy smooch on his cheek.

“I can’t possibly say no to the chocolate cookies now, can’t I?”

“Nope!” Ayame chirps.

The concept of bribery is not lost on this 9 years old…

“But daddy likes those with almonds best…” Kaede interjects, a pout already on his lips. Suga knows for a fact those are _his_ favourites as well. And apparently, he’s quite versed in the art of manipulation too, if the puppy eyes he’s showing off now are any indication.

And Suga is strong, he is trained, in the years he’s spent working as a nanny he learned quite well not to cave in the face of little children’s tricks…but with these children all he was taught, all he knows – thought he knew – has been overturned, shaken to its foundation.

So he caves. In front of Kaede’s wide, pleading eyes, and Ayame’s pout he caves. But not before staging it as though he at least tried to put up a fight.

He pretends to think about it, long and hard. He paces the kitchen, torn and conflicted, while Ayame taps her foot impatiently on the ground. He cards his fingers through his hair, to show just how uncertain, divided he is. Then he sighs a long-suffering sigh and puts his hands on his hips. “Well then I guess we’ll have to make them both…”

His declaration is welcomed by a loud whoop and cheers.

Kaede immediately climbs up a stool and starts putting the bowls in order, all in a perfectly straight line. Ayame collects her hair in a ponytail, then helps Suga do the same with his.

“But no clownfish bobby pins this time!” he tells her, and she swears in a manner that is not all that convincing to be honest.

“Alright Kaede, you start beating the butter, then when it gets all soft and creamy add the sugar!”

Kaede nods and takes the whisk in both his hands. The bowl moves and shifts on the counter, but Suga doesn’t grab at it to keep it steady. He doesn’t even raise his eyes from the recipe and the ingredients he’s weighing.

Kaede will figure it out on his own, let the bowl fall it’s not like it matters. It’s just plastic.

“What do I do, Suga-san?” Ayame asks from the other side of counter, where the ingredients for her chocolate cookies are all mixed, packets of flour on top of chocolate bars, cocoa powder on butter. Grains of sugar have already fallen from the carton box to cover half the worktop.

Suga bites back a smile.

_These two are really like Sun and Moon…_

“Do you think you can melt the butter and chocolate together?”

Ayame nods. With her it’s not so much a question as to whether she _can_ do it though. Baking is by all means a science, made of specific quantities and timings and Ayame…well, she’s not the most precise of people. Nor the most patient.

Suga walks closer to her. Better keep her in his line of sight.

He mixes flour and salt and breaks the eggs for Ayame to add later.

“Careful not to burn it,” he tells her, and at Ayame’s annoyed glare he adds, “hey, I saw your father burn a chunk of butter in the blink of an eye, and then again some poor chicken wings. Forgive me if I’m concerned.”

Ayame rolls her eyes at him – God, she’s really starting to act more and more like a teen every day – and even sticks out her tongue.

Suga reaches out and pinches her on the nose.

“Ow!”

“Oh, please, I barely touched you!”

“When did we have chicken?” Kaede asks. He’s holding the bowl with one hand now, while the other beats the butter. It’s almost the right consistency and Suga can’t help a proud grin at that.

“It was when you two were with your mother.”

“When we called?”

“Uh-uh!”

“I still can’t believe daddy spent a whole day with you!” Ayame says, and stirs the mix of butter and chocolate with so much force it spills a little on the stove.

Suga hurries to turn it off. “What, um, what is wrong with me and your father spending a day together?”

He coughs in his hand to cover the uncertainty of his voice.

Ayame turns toward him and Suga’s heart drops to his feet when he notices the scowl on her face.

Oh, God, they don’t…they don’t want him to spend time with their dad. They think he’s not good enough for their dad, not even as a friend. Maybe they’re scared he might be trying to steal Daichi from them, keep him all to himself. And the more he and Daichi interact, talk and laugh and enjoy each other’s company the more they will distance themselves from him. Before he knows it they’ll start talking about him like they do about Yurika-san’s boyfriend and Daichi will be forced to fire him because, of course, a nanny your kids hate is no good and-

“We never get to spend a whole day with you!”

_Uh?_

“Uh?”

“It’s not fair that he gets to do it and we don’t! We only see you after school and _he_ calls you and gets to spend the morning with you, the afternoon with you, the night with you! When we are not there!”

Suga gapes at her, looks to Kaede instead and sees him nodding along to his sister’s words. They wanted to spend the day with him, that’s why they’re mad. They wanted…

“I have to have a talk with daddy about this. Dede, remember me to do it!”

“Remind me, Aya.”

“Whatever.”

“Um, Suga-san?” Kaede calls him.

“Yeah?”

“Are you ok?”

“Oh no, Suga-san are you crying?”

Suga shakes his head and blinks away the water that has gathered at the corners of his eyes. “No, of- of course not, I just, um, I just got some…flour in my eye.”

Kaede immediately leans forward to hand him a clean napkin. Ayame, not to be outdone, gets him a glass of water and a little square of chocolate to munch. Suga recently brought her Prisoner of Azkaban, it’s easy to tell who’s her favourite character so far. Suga thanks her and Kaede both, dabs at his eyes and hunches down on the recipes again, to cover a pleased smile.

 

Daichi arrives just when it has started to thunder.

The kids immediately make to go to him for the usual hug, but Suga takes one look at the soaking wet clothes adhering to Daichi’s body and grabs them both by the backs of their shirt.

“I think it would be better to let your father change into something a little drier before climbing on him…”

Once the kids have settled back on the couch with matching, annoyed huffs, Suga throws another, more thorough look at Daichi’s white shirt, which has become see-through thanks to the rain.

_Sweet mother of all that is good and pure…_

The fabric is sticking so well to Daichi’s chest Suga can make out the coarse black hair at the centre of it, he can see Daichi’s nipples as though there’s nothing covering them.

Daichi shifts to get out of his jacket and his shirt stretches impossibly tight across his chest, through the spaces between each button Suga catches glimpses of tanned skin…

“What is this smell?” Daichi asks and looks straight into his eyes.

Suga stutters.

_Probably the smell of my insides catching on fire…_

“We baked cookies!”

_Oh. Yeah, that too._

Thank God for Ayame.

“Um, y-yeah. Cookies.”

Daichi lights up like a kid in a toy store. It’s incredibly charming. “The ones with almonds?”

“Yes, and the chocolate ones too…”

But Daichi is not listening anymore, busy as he is taking off his shoes and running upstairs to get something dry on. “Don’t eat them without me!” he calls, already at the top of the stairs.

“And you try not to break your neck, there’s plenty left for you!”

No answer but for a door slamming shut.

Suga shakes his head and tries to get the image of Daichi’s chest out with the motion. He starts to collect the bowls from the counter and put them in the sink, then the ingredients back in the cabinets.

“Daddy is different now,” Kaede is telling Ayame in hushed tones, two cookies in each hand.

“You think?” Ayame whispers back from her perch on the kitchen island.

Suga opens the water and pretends he’s not listening in.

“Mmm, but not different different. Like, more happy?”

“Eh, I guess you’re right…”

Silence, then Ayame sucks in a breath. “You don’t think…”

“What?”

“You don’t think that daddy has, like, a girlfriend or something?”

The knife Suga is washing slips from his hold and cuts a line on his palm. Blood spills down his wrist and turns pink with the water. “Oh, merde.”

“Suga-san?”

“Suga?”

Daichi appears by the kitchen door, now in soft sweatpants and a grey, long-sleeved shirt that hugs his torso beautifully. He’s drying his hair with a towel. As soon as he catches sight of Suga’s hand he drops it on the floor to rush by his side.

“Oh, shoot…”

“I’m so sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?” Daichi takes Suga’s wrist in his hand to inspect the cut and hastily passes his palm under some cold water.

“Ayame, take the first aid kit that’s in the laundry room,” he says, and Ayame stops trying to peek behind her father’s frame to do as he says.

“Suga-san, are you hurt?” Kaede steps down the stool and walks to his side.

Suga turns his back on him and tries to cover his bloody hand from Kaede’s sight. Daichi never mentioned Kaede having a bad reaction to blood but it’s always better not to risk it.

“It’s nothing, really. Just a cut.”

“It looks pretty shallow,” Daichi says, and turns the water off to get a better look at it. “Does it hurt?”

“No, um, not so much.”

It might, Suga’s not sure. Daichi has started to rub circles on his palms with his thumb and Suga is not really sure of anything right now.

He doesn’t stop even when Ayame comes back with the first aid kit. With one hand he disinfects the cut, and with the other he keeps stroking Suga’s skin. Gentle, like you would never expect from a man his size, and possessing the strength he displays in every other gesture.

“It doesn’t burn too much, does it?” he asks almost in a whisper. He’s hunched down on Suga’s hand and his breath tickles Suga’s fingers, his palm.

Suga’s heart speeds up. “No, no, it’s f-fine.”

Daichi’s hand circles his wrist instead, and Suga prays he doesn’t notice the frantic rhythm of his pulses.

The cut is too long for the band-aids they have – “Oh, but I wanted the one with the sushi rolls!” “I wouldn’t have expected anything different from you, Suga.” – so Daichi bandages it instead. He’s being so careful with it Suga is sure he must be blushing.

He feels much like the good china, a precious crystal glass. Normally he wouldn’t like that, he hates when men treat him with velvet gloves  just because of his pretty face and his depressing lack of muscle, but with Daichi…all he sees is genuine care. It’s dizzying, being taken in such a high consideration, and cared for with such focus.

It’s dizzying, his head is starting to spin.

As soon as Daichi is done Suga takes his hand away, too quick not to result brusque. “W-well now, you were promised cookies, isn’t that right?” His tone is just on this side of squeaky.

He gestures for the cookies sitting splendidly on the large, party plates and shoves one in his mouth with his good hand.

Daichi’s expression falls, but he’s so fast to plaster another smile on his face Suga doesn’t even notice.

 

“I can’t believe you ate them all!”

“I can’t believe you let me! Now I won’t have anything to eat for breakfast tomorrow!”

Suga leans back on the counter and watches Daichi wash the dishes. It’s a surprisingly delightful activity, what with the way Daichi’s muscles shift under his shirt.

“I know for sure that there is a shelf in the cabinet to your left that’s full of over three different kinds of corn flakes, not to mention boxes of cereals and other kinds of snacks!”

“But that’s different, you didn’t make those.”

Suga hip-checks him with a smile and moves away swiftly when Daichi makes to do the same. “Alright, just because you said that, I’m going to show you something…”

Daichi dries his hands on his pants and looks at him, intrigued.

Suga takes a bowl from the fridge and hands it to him with a flourish.

“Cookie dough!”

His face breaks into the goofiest smile Suga has ever seen.

_He really looks happier…_

Has for a while. Suga noticed. And a part of him likes – liked? – to think that maybe, for a small part, it’s thanks to him as well, for the help he’s been giving Daichi with the kids, for their friendship and…and something else too. But maybe…

His girlfriend.

Inoue-san’s gorgeous face comes to Suga’s mind. Daichi doesn’t talk  about her much, he never really did to begin with, but maybe it’s her. Maybe she’s the reason. Maybe things are going well, great between them.

And isn’t that…

Isn’t that great?

“Suga?”

A finger playfully flicks him on the chin and he finds himself staring into Daichi’s eyes again. “I’m sorry, what?”

Daichi smiles and shakes the bowl under his nose. “How did you get the kids not to eat it all?”

“Oh, I told them they’d get salmonella. Which is true.”

“And they didn’t protest?”

“Are you kidding? Of course they did, especially when I ate some of it in front of them but then I told them grown-ups are immune to salmonella and, well, they gave up after that.”

Daichi makes a sound that’s between a snort and a chuckle and pinches his nose to suppress more. “You’re evil. Pure evil.”

“You flatter me, captain.”

“I was never your captain, Suga.”

“Whatever, pass me a spoon, Karasuno jersey number 1.”

 

“So how’s your thesis going?” Daichi asks and licks his spoon till it’s perfectly shiny, eyes closed in bliss.

What a ridiculous, ridiculous man.

“Good. I’m at the point where I’m beginning to wish I’d never set foot in a college, but to hear my advisor say it, that’s the first signal that you’ve made it.”

“Sounds about right.”

Another lick, then Daichi drops the spoon in the sink. “I want to read it, by the way.”

“What? My thesis?”

“Uh-uh. When it’s finished, of course.”

Suga drops the empty bowl in the sink too and rests back on the counter once again. “Why? You interested in the linguistic analysis and comparison between Japanese authors as translated in French and French authors as translated in Japanese?”

Daichi comes to stand in front of him. “Normally no, not much, but if you are the one talking about it I have a feeling I’d find it fascinating.”

It sounds so much like a line from a boy who’s trying to pick you up in a seedy bar. Suga can’t not laugh at that. And it seems to have been Daichi’s purpose in the first place, because now he’s smiling, and looking quite smug too.

“You idiot.”

Suga makes to slap his shoulder but Daichi catches his hand in his and tugs playfully at it. “I’m serious, I would love to read it one day.”

“Ok now ask me in your captain voice.”

“And _I’m_ the idiot?”

Then he falls quiet, like a thought has just occurred to him and is quickly overshadowing everything else. He lets go of Suga’s hand and starts rubbing at the back of his neck. He’s not quite meeting his eyes.

“What is it?”

“Nothing?”

Suga pinches him on the side with his uninjured hand. “What is it?”

“Nothing. It’s stupid.”

“Daichi, I witnessed you being chased around by a heartbroken, ravenous duck. In fact, I almost risked my life, caught in that crossfire, I think that entitles me to know every single embarrassing, stupid thought you’ve ever had in your life. Forever.”

Daichi rolls his eyes at his antics, but it’s clear he wants to laugh.“You make a good point.”

The clock ticks two seconds, then three. Daichi still keeps quiet. His eyes are glittering with something that looks much like expectation.

Suga huffs and crosses his arms over his chest. Daichi is testing him, he wants to see how long Suga will resist before exploding and hissing at him to just ‘spit it out already’.

Well, Suga will not give him that satisfaction.

The clock ticks 43 seconds. No, Suga is not counting, thank you very much. He just…has an eye, and an ear, for details.

His right eye begins to twitch. Daichi notices and his face opens in yet another smile.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Sawamura! Spill it!”

Daichi throws his head back and laughs and it’s only Suga’s vicious pinch on his gut that makes him stop, exactly as the clock signals that a minute and a half has gone by.

“Wow, that must be a new record.”

“Daichi, I swear if you don’t tell me now you will not see the light of day.”

Daichi raises his palms in a pacifying gesture and suddenly he’s tentative, almost shy again.

“ _Alright_ , alright. I was thinking about Karasuno, ok? And how I was the captain there, in my third year. And how you…you were the vice-captain in yours…so I was thinking what if…”

“What if we had met then?” Suga finishes for him, and it’s not stupid. It’s not stupid at all.

“Yeah.”

_What if…_

The image of a young, fresh-faced Daichi comes to his mind and Suga grins. Daichi in his teens, already – always - so stubborn and hard-working, already so sure of his place in the world and of the things he wants to become. Sweet, awkward Daichi who tries his hardest and then some, and can’t wrap his head around people who don’t do the same.

The captain everyone would want, the player every team should have.

Suga has no doubt that even then, even in the confusing, terrified daze that were his teenage years, he would have been drawn to Daichi, to the security he seems to emanate, and even more to the insecurity that still can’t help but emerge, stifled and hidden but undeniably there.

And it’s so easy, almost too easy to picture them standing next to each other, 1 and 2, in their black and orange jerseys. Teasing each other – “Are you nervous, Daichi? A captain can’t lose his composure!” – or trying to be reassuring – “We are not going to lose.”.

Just as it’s easy picturing himself follow Daichi’s every move, during practice maybe, or in class, when he’s sure no one will notice. Counting the times their hands brush together when they are walking home, still –always, - side by side.

It’s easy, in a way it’s what he’s been doing this entire time. What they’ve been doing, together, these past few weeks.

“Do you think we would have gotten along?” Daichi asks, but from the look he’s giving him he’s come to the same conclusion as Suga has.

“Yeah. I-I think we would have been pretty incredible.”

Together. As a team.

Daichi’s hand moves to rest on the counter, right next to the curve of Suga’s waist.

They smile.

“I think so too.”

“You think too what?”

Daichi jumps and Suga with him, heart in his throat. They turn together and find Ayame and Kaede staring at them by the door frame, peeking in like a couple of nosy neighbors.

Daichi shoves his hand in his pocket. “Nothing, just that…um, the cookies! Those cookies were excellent!”

Suga nods. He doesn’t like the way Kaede is looking from him to his father. Not one bit. It’s too calculating, too knowing to belong on the face of a 4 years old.

Ayame cocks her head to the side.

“You two are acting weird,” she proclaims after a contemplative pause.

Suga is in no position to protest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is super short, especially compared to the last few chapters but the second part is over 10.000 words long and I couldn't find a point to split it in a more even way that wouldn't ruin the flow of the chapter (especially considering that, as you can see, it's already split in days of the week.) I'm sorry, I really hope you'll enjoy it anyway...
> 
> On a less apologetic tone, more wonderful fanarts of blossoms! Seriously you guys are just so great. [This](http://kabokki.tumblr.com/post/149596722428/i-have-read-daisuga-fic-it-so-lovely-bcos-suga) is a lovely fanart of all out heroes, i'm especially in love with this person's Kaede. [This](http://dieraposa.tumblr.com/post/149665287091/help-daichi-2k16-aka-the-jacket-scene-from-this) is a fantastic drawing of the jacket scene, i love it so much. [This](http://tepidtea.tumblr.com/post/149719159299/im-reading-a-daisuga-fanfic-called-the-blossoms) is a wonderful fanart of Suga in a skirt!  
> Make sure to check them all out and build little shrines to these amazing artists!


	16. The dizzy dancing way that you feel part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the rain that makes the flowers bloom.

Thursday

 

The problem is not the rain. By itself, the rain is almost never the problem.

It’s when you combine it with a wind strong enough to knock the umbrella off your hand that trouble really, truly starts.

“C’est des conneries!”

Suga watches his umbrella fly away, and almost hit a poor guy in the face, with dawning terror.

Thunder rumbles, so loud it makes the shop windows shake and rattle. Rain keeps pouring from the sky.

Suga looks up at it in challenge. “Va te faire foutre!” he screams, above the noises of the streets and the howling of the wind.

Lightning strikes. From the thick grey of the clouds it appears, tinging them purple for the blink of an eye, and hits the rod of a skyscraper.

Well-played, universe. Well, played.

Suga nods at the sky in acknowledgement and runs for cover.

Thankfully, Mrs. Devaux’s shop is near. Not so thankfully, half a block at the complete mercy of the elements is enough to get him drenched. He’s drowning in his clothes and seething by the time Mrs. Devaux opens the door to let him in.

“Oh, darling…” she says, and ushers him inside quickly. She turns the sign from ‘open’ to ‘closed’ – “It’s not like anyone is going to come in with this weather anyway” – and shows him to the small bathroom in the back of the shop.

“Boy, you look like you went for a swim fully dressed.”

He may as well have.

“The stupid wind made my stupid umbrella fly off into the distance.”

“Aaaah, wind and rain combined are the worst.”

Suga nods and takes the towels she hands him with what is probably his first smile of the day. Hey, it’s hard to find reasons to be jolly when one of your flatmates is constantly torn between sulking over the mess that is his love life and smirk at you because yours is probably even worse, the other flatmate is busy sighing over a boy that 1) doesn’t deserve him, and 2) is probably already taken anyway and even your cat is feeling morose because with all this rain she hasn’t been able to go hunt for sewer rats that are often the size of small dogs.

Well, Suga is actually kind of happy about the last one. When Onyx brings those…creatures to the house it always somehow ends with Taka climbing on the couch, Suga climbing on Taka and Tooru having to lean on the wall not to faint.

But that’s not the point.

“Drying those clothes might take a while,” Mrs. Devaux is saying, and studying his thin clothes with a skeptic eye, “don’t you have anything else you can wear for now?”

“I, um…”

There are Daichi’s sweatpants in his bag, and his jacket too, folded as carefully as Suga could master. So not at all. Tooru folded it for him.

It’s amazing how well that man cares for his clothes, and yet how poor his fashion sense is.

“I…I have some stuff, but is there a chance you have a shirt that would…fit me?”

_And suit me._

He never much cared for gendered clothes – boy clothes, girl clothes, it’s all crap to him – but he does draw the line at grandma clothes. And while Mrs. Devaux is easily one of the most elegant old ladies he’s ever met, he doubts he could pull off floral, satin shirts.

“I think I have a couple of those brand shirts they give you when you collect enough points…” she trails off as she goes looking for them.

Suga hurries to get out of his sticky clothes and tries not to think too much about how he’s getting into Daichi’s pants for the second time in the matter of a week. If only there were a deeper, metaphorical sense to this sentence.

Mrs. Devaux passes him the shirt through the semi-closed door, and Suga all but sighs in relief when he sees it. Black, simple, with only the logo of a chain of supermarkets on the front. He gets out of the bathroom and thanks Mrs. Devaux with a smile.

“The shirt’s good, right? A little loose on the shoulders, a little too long, but that’s fine, isn’t it?”

“It’s perfect, thank you,” he reassures her, but lets her fuss over him anyway. From the way she’s smiling she seems to enjoy it.

His nana too, takes a weird sense of pride in fussing over him. Adjusting the collar of his shirt, pinching his cheeks so they’ll look more pink, brushing off imaginary lints from his clothes.

Just as he’s thinking it, Mrs. Devaux does it and he can’t keep the laughter in.

Mrs. Devaux looks up at him. “What is it, love?”

“Nothing, nothing. Just thinking about something my flatmate said today.”

“Oh,” is all she replies with.

She disappears back in the bathroom for a moment and gets out with yet another towel in hand. “Sit on that stool, Koushi-kun,” she orders. Suga does.

And he’s rendered speechless when she passes the towel over his head and starts drying his hair for him.

Just for a moment Suga closes his eyes and he’s in Miyagi again, with his father, sitting on the edge of the bathtub with a towel on his head and listening to his father talk about the different kinds of woods and how easy it is to butcher a restored piece when incorrectly identifying the wood it was carved from.

Bath time was his favourite time when he was a kid, because for over half an hour he had his father all to himself and it was just the two of them. The two of them and no one else.

He doesn’t know if his mother ever did this with him. It’s possible, probable that she did but he can’t remember.

Mrs. Devaux is gentler than his father, almost careful. She doesn’t mess his hair up or tug it to get a laugh out of him, and she doesn’t complain about how long it’s getting every two minutes.

Instead, she takes locks between her fingers and strokes them, almost inspects them under the shop lights.

“It really is silver,” she whispers at one point, between her lips. There’s a weird look in her eyes.

“It’s beautiful,” she says then, after a pause. Lets it fall back to frame Suga’s face.

“Well, it’s, um. So is yours?”

He was never good at accepting such earnest compliments. Especially about his hair, he’s always only been made fun of for it.

Mrs. Devaux shakes her head and her – really stunning - mane of silver hair moves with her like an halo. “No, mine turned silver with age. When I was young it was closer to an ash blond color. Yours,” she stops, and her eyes turn softer, “yours is pure _argent_.”

She reaches out and brushes some strands away from his forehead. “My sister had hair just like yours.”

Her voice shakes and then breaks.

That past hurts Suga like a gunshot to the heart and he can’t explain it. He doesn’t ask either, he just looks Mrs. Devaux in the eyes and tells her he’s sorry.

She smiles at him, unexpectedly sincere, earnest. “It’s alright, darling. It was over 20 years ago.”

And she pinches his cheek. “There is a comb in the bathroom, on the cabinet by the sink. Go scrub up a little, then maybe you could help me rearrange these bouquets of gerbera daisies…”

Suga stands and squeezes her in a hug. “I would love to.”

The morning flies by, lost between flowers in full bloom.

 

“Oh my God, I can’t believe it got worse. I didn’t even think there was a worse!”

Suga slams the front door open and rushes Kaede inside. Before leaving Mrs. Devaux had given him one of her umbrellas and it had done its job decently from the shop to Kaede’s school, but now that the wind has risen again, much stronger than before, Suga dreads the moment he’ll have to step outside again to pick up Ayame.

“Ugh, I hate this thing!” Kaede cries out, stomping his foot on the entrance carpet. This thing being the bright yellow rain cape he’s viciously tugging the strings of.

“Give it here,” Suga steps in before Kaede can rip it. For his part, he thinks Kaede looks absolutely adorable.

“No, I don’t. I look like a bee!”

“What is this contempt for bees? Bees are cute!”

“No they are not! They are mean, and they sting and…” Kaede munches on his lip, trying to find more faults, then sighs, defeated. “Well, they sting!”

“Good point.”

Suga shakes the cape a little and hangs it on the coat rack, away from Daichi’s expensive coats and jackets. Bee-like or not it managed to keep Kaede dry and that’s the only thing that matters. He promised his father he’d come to Miyagi next week-end and he knows that if Kaede were to get sick he’d never have the heart to leave.

They make their way to the kitchen to get started on the omurice, like Kaede requested. Apparently he came home with quite the appetite today.

“There was squid for lunch today,” he tells Suga in a whisper, eyes fixed on Suga’s hands to study the way he cracks the eggs.

“I thought you liked squid?”

“I do but not the school squid. That thing is fool.”

“I think you meant ‘foul’.”

“Oh yeah, that.”

Suga hands him an egg and moves the bowl closer to him. “Now you try.”

Kaede moves the egg away – too far away - from the edge of the bowl and Suga hurries to say, “but remember: gentle and easy.”

Too late.

The first egg ends up dripping all over the counter. The second one leaves shell in the bowl. The third, Kaede handles it so carefully it takes it five hits to simply crack.

“Ok, now help yourself with your other hand to open it.”

Suga looks with bated breath as Kaede sits up on his stool and pries the egg open. It falls in the bowl, the yolk still perfectly intact. Kaede throws the shell aside and whoops.

They high-five, only to groan at their sticky hands.

“Gross!”

“That was some good egg-cracking, Kaede. Now we better hurry, God knows how long it’ll take us to get to Ayame’s school.”

“But I messed the first two…” Kaede mutters, jumping down on the stool.

“Everybody messes up the first time. The important thing is that you got it in the end. And on your third try, that’s good, you know?”

“Really?”

“Very! Now come on, time to turn into a bee again.”

Kaede’s pleased smile turns immediately into a scowl.

“What’s that?” he asks all of a sudden as he’s fighting again with his rain coat. “It…Suga-san, it says it’s for you!”

“What?”

Suga looks up from his shoes and follows Kaede’s gaze, fixed on the baby blue rain cape hanging from one of the hooks. He’d dismissed it earlier as one of Ayame’s but now that he notices it’s too long for her. And Kaede is right, there’s a note stuck to it – a jellyfish-shaped note – that says ‘for Suga’.

He takes it, a smile already growing on his face, and puts the cape on. Something crunches in one of the pocket. It’s another note.

Can’t have you getting sick – Daichi

P.S.

I wanted something more colorful (read: weirder) for you, but none of the fish or duck themed capes would have fit you.

Suga laughs.

He keeps the note, hides it in one of the pockets of his wallet, not knowing Daichi too had saved his own months ago in the same exact spot.

 

“Ugh, I hate this rain! I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!”

Suga nods and Kaede with him. After three rounds of Pictionary where neither of them could understand any of the things Ayame was supposed to draw, she declared defeat, deciding to lie down face-first on the couch instead.

Suga is tempted to imitate her.

“Why didn’t you bring Onyx?” she whines against the fabric of the arm rest.

“Because Onyx would never allow me to take her out in this weather. And I would never force her.”

Ayame turns to look at him. The word ‘’skepticism’’ is written all over her face.

“I’ll have you know, Ayame-chan, that Onyx and I share a special bond based on mutual respect. And that includes, for me, never forcing her outside in the middle of a thunderstorm and, on her part, never sitting on my face while I’m sleeping. The chest is fine, she can snuggle my hair all she wants, but the face is off-limit.”

Kaede giggles at that, and despite herself Ayame can’t help but crack a smile too.

Suga sighs and steels himself for what he’s about to suggest.

“You could, um,” – _be_ _strong,_ _Koushi,_ _be_ _strong_ \- “you could do my hair again? Or paint my nails?”

He regrets it as soon as the words leave his mouth and Ayame’s eyes start to twinkle with purpose and poorly repressed glee.

 

 

*

 

“Damn it, damn it, damn it!”

Daichi jumps over a puddle only to land in another. Mud and water splash and dirt the hem of his pants. He keeps running, clinging on the umbrella for dear life.

He’s almost there. Almost. There.

He trips on the steps to his front door and cusses but he manages to grab the knob before he can fall on his face.

Thunder roars but the wind is so loud between the trees Daichi can barely hear it. He looks around for his keys, two twists and finally he’s home.

He’s panting. He’s soaked from the waist down. He’s piss- _oh_.

Suga is sitting on the couch, head thrown back in laughter and cheeks pink. Ayame and Kaede are both hunched down on his hands, Ayame with her tongue sticking out for the concentration, Kaede biting his lip not to burst out laughing too.

At the click of the door falling shut they all look up at him and smile.

“Hey daddy!”

“Hi.”

Seeing as they are all so focused Daichi goes to them instead. Leans down to press a kiss on Kaede’s hair, then one on Ayame’s cheek. He stands again, moves around the couch and without thinking makes to press a kiss on Suga’s temple. He catches himself only when he’s already close enough he can see the faint sprinkling of freckles on Suga’s nose.

He stops.

Suga’s eyes widen.

“What are you doing, dad?” Kaede calls to him and Daichi finds him staring at them with an unfathomable grin on his face.

“Um, I…I thought Suga had some…some dirt on his face but it was just a mole!” Daichi laughs. On the inside, he is screaming.

He straightens again, throws a curt nod at Suga, who is red all the way down his neck, and runs upstairs to go get changed. Or flush himself down the toilet, he’s not really sure which one yet.

He just almost kissed Suga. On the temple, but still they don’t do that, they’ve never done it.

And why would they start?

Yes, it’s a nice gesture. In Europe they do it all the time. And Suga does have wonderful lips, plump and soft-looking, made for kissing-

Alright no. Not going down that road.

That’s right, steer perfectly clear from that road no matter how much you’d like to explore it and worship it with your tongue- _damn_ _it_.

Daichi almost rips the last buttons of his shirt in a bout of irritation.

He manages to get dressed without further accidents – but for nearly falling on his ass with a foot caught in his pants - only thanks to the breathing exercises he learnt in Lamaze class when Yurika was pregnant with Ayame.

Small gestures, and focus on breathing.

Pick a pair of sweatpants.

Done.

Now a shirt.

Breathe in and then out.

_Everything is fine, you stopped before you could kiss him._

_That’s good, that was the true proof of your strength, Daichi._

He nods at his reflection in the mirror and closes the bedroom door behind him.

_You are strong. You are strong and you can do this._

He climbs down the stairs…and on the last couple of steps he stumbles.

Suga is bent down at the waist to fix the couch cover. He’s wearing Daichi’s sweatpants – _again_ \- and his shirt has ridden up to uncover a  strip of milky white skin. The dimples at the base of his spine.

Air gets stuck in the middle of Daichi’s throat and he nearly chokes on it.

 

“Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“No, o-of course I don’t. You needed dry clothes so you wore mine. It’s fine, really.”

Suga raises an eyebrow and Daichi clears his throat, silently willing the pitch of his voice to _go_ _down_ _for_ _goodness’_ _sake_. “So, nail polish, uh?”

_Change of topic, good thinking, Daichi._

Suga wiggles his fingers at him, one hand is painted a bright yellow, the other pink. Some polish has gotten on his fingers too, in the spaces around the nails. “I was at my wits’ end, to be honest. But turning into a living, breathing dressing doll works every time.”

“I bet. In fact, I’m surprised they didn’t do more to you.”

“They lost a lot of time painting my toe nails.” Then, in a whisper, “that’s why I suggested they start with that.”

Daichi snorts and throws more dry clothes in the basket. “You’re not just evil, you’re an evil mastermind.”

“Oh, come on, I was just trying to save myself!”

They walk out of the laundry room, where Suga had cornered him to explain the reason behind his attire, to find Ayame and Kaede arguing in not so amiable tones on opposite ends of the couch.

“I don’t want to, Aya!”

“It’s just one hand, don’t be such a baby!”

“I said no!”

“Hey, you two!”

At Daichi’s voice they both start. “What’s going on?”

“Aya wants to paint my nails!”

“I’ll make you look cute, I promise!”

“Kaede-kun doesn’t need nail polish to look cute.”

“Thank you, Suga-san!”

“Whose side are you on, Suga-san?”

“Quiet, now, all of you!”

Ayame makes to open her mouth again, Daichi silences her with a glare. “Your brother said he doesn’t want you to paint his nails, so accept it and leave him alone.”

“But I’m bored!”

“I’m sure you can find something else to do.”

Ayame scowls at him and looks to Suga instead for some support. “Suga-san…”

She won’t find it. “I’m sorry, Ayame, but your father’s right. You can’t force your brother to do something he doesn’t want just because you’re bored.”

Ayame huffs, but when Suga’s gaze becomes severe she turns to Kaede and apologizes.

“But you could always try asking your father…”

“SUGA!”

Two minutes later Daichi finds himself sitting on the couch, hands splayed on his knees while Ayame, Kaede and Suga try to decide what colors would go better with his skin tone.

“You are going to pay for this,” he whispers to Suga when he’s sure the kids won’t hear. All he gets in answer is a charming wink.

 

In the end, they go with red.

“Yes, red is definitely your color, Daichi,” Suga tells him, and as irritated with him as Daichi is – pretends to be – now, he makes sure to store the information for future use.

“But red nail polish is an old lady color.”

“Oh no, red is a classic. It’s different.”

“If you say so then I guess I have _no_ _reason_ to doubt you, right?”

Suga just sits back and watches, an infuriating smirk on his face.

 

The wind blows faster, harder. Raindrops explode on the windows, loud as gunshots.

“Oh, this is bad…” Suga mutters and jumps when his words are echoed by thunder. He keeps staring at the clock inching closer and closer to 8, and biting his lip in nerves, but it seems the later it gets the stronger the wind blows. And with it the rain, pouring hard and relentless, and with them the thunder, roaring louder and louder.

Daichi will be damned if he lets Suga out in the night like this, with only his sad umbrella and a thin rain coat. And driving him…well, that too, is out of question.

“You are not going anywhere, Suga. Not until it gets better.”

“ _If_ it gets better,” comes Kaede’s foreboding whisper. He’s been looking out the window for the past five minutes, adding a detail to his drawing from time to time.

Ayame is still focused on Daichi’s nails.

“Do you think you’re somehow close to being done, love?” Daichi asks only for Ayame to throw daggers at him with her eyes.

“I’m trying to make up for the mess Dede did.”

“I didn’t make a mess!”

“Yes you did!”

“Come on, you two. Let’s not start again.”

At Suga’s plea they all fall quiet.

Lightning strikes again and Ayame shivers. “A-alright, done,” she mutters.

Daichi and Suga share a look.

Ayame has never been a fan of lightning. It’s not the wind she minds, the rain or the booming of thunder but lightning has her on edge, the crackling of it is enough to make her cower on the worst nights. Today she is just trying to be brave.

Thankfully the blinds are all drawn except for those of the window Kaede is sitting by, she may hear them from time to time but at least she can’t see them. Daichi has no doubt Suga closed them all earlier with exactly this in mind.

Another lightning, closer to them.

Suga springs to his feet and turns on the TV, tells Ayame to pick a movie, then walks to Kaede to whisper something in his ear.

Kaede hops down the window pane and goes to sit on the sofa instead. The last curtain is drawn closed too.

“Is Enchanted alright?” Ayame asks from the pile of movies she’s half-hidden behind.

Suga lights up like a Christmas tree. “Oh, I love that movie!”

Lightning. Ayame jumps, some DVDs fall from the apex of the tower.

Daichi stands up too and arranges the movies back on the shelves. When he passes Suga by he sees him biting him lip, lost in thought.

“Turn the volume up, Ayame, so I can hear it from the kitchen,” he says at last.

“What? You’re not watching with us?”

“I can’t, shrimp, I need to help your father with dinner. I doubt the polish is dry yet.”

Daichi makes to protest, if Suga wants to watch the movie he can manage no problem, but before he can even open his mouth Suga pinches his side, an order to keep quiet.

Ayame nods at Suga, a little dejected, and starts the movie without protests. Soon the house is filled with voices and songs, clear enough it echoes on the kitchen walls too, loud enough the crackling of lightning cannot be heard.

And Daichi understands.

_This man…_

“You’re a genius,” is all he manages to say.

Suga just shrugs and keeps collecting vegetables for the broth. “Not an evil mastermind?”

“Clearly your brain is an asset to both sides.”

Suga throws a cloth right in his face.

 

There is an easiness in cooking with Suga that Daichi still can’t explain.

They move in the narrow space near the stove like they’ve been doing it for years, bumping elbows and hips from time to time but even that has a weird sort of rhythm. Daichi will see the water boil and before he can reach out for the vegetables Suga is already adding them, along with the herbs Daichi had prepared.

Daichi stirs the sauce Suga is tending to while Suga looks around for the bread. Suga is already leaning toward him when Daichi takes a spoon to make him taste the water for the noodles.

It’s all so effortless, and yet not because the kitchen is a mess and Daichi keeps dropping stuff whenever Suga throws him a smile, and it’s so much fun. It’s exhilarating, like jumping off that swing when they were almost at the top.

“Ok ok, I have a good one: favourite Love, Actually storyline?”

Daichi shakes his head and takes the thyme from Suga’s hands. “How is that a good question?”

“Hey! Things like that say a lot about you!”

“If you say so…alright then, if we consider the whole movie, with all the cheesy endings etcetera then I guess the one with the porn actors?”

Suga stops chopping the carrots to take a good look at him. There’s a smile in his eyes.

“What?”

“Nothing, just…it’s my favourite too, if I have to consider how the movie ends for all the characters.”

“I mean, the one with Colin Firth is adorable but then he proposes to her and, like, that’s too much, my friend, way too much. I understand you and that girl share a special bond, or whatever, but you never had a real conversation, damn it! And the Prime Minister, with that kiss…Too flashy for my taste.”

Daichi listens to Suga ramble, go on and on about this silly movie with the same passion he puts when talking about volleyball, or those French poets he’s studying and all he wants, the only thing he wants to do – for the rest of his life – is kiss him.

Kiss him right now, in this kitchen, while that Giselle girl sings ‘That’s How You Know’ all around them. Kiss him in the morning, before they’ve brushed their teeth, Suga laughing in his mouth because ‘he tastes gross’. Kiss him in the night, the last thing he does before falling asleep. Kiss him in the park, on the swings outside the garden, kiss him everywhere.

And this thought too, is exhilarating.

“Daichi?” Suga calls and Daichi blinks at him.

He looks down on the meat he’s supposed to flavor and adds another sprinkle of salt.

Except he can’t just do that. He can’t just kiss his, his…Suga. No, not his Suga. Suga is not his nor anybody else’s. Suga is his nanny. His friend. He can’t just kiss him with the kids in the next room, when his hands smell of raw pork.

He can’t, not like this, so he clears his throat and gets back to dinner. He can’t kiss him, so he asks, “Best festival you’ve been to.”

 

“These are so good!”

Ayame takes another potato croquette Suga made and shoves it in her mouth. “So good,” she repeats with her mouth full.

Suga grins winningly at her. “Thanks, Ayame. Hey, where did you get to with the movie?”

“Giselle just told Prince Edward they should go on a date first.”

“Oh, so the ball is next!”

Ayame nods and steals a croquette from Suga’s plate. Suga pretends not to notice but throws a wink Kaede’s way when he steals it back. Kaede snorts and covers his mouth not to get potatoes all over the table.

“Why are you laughing, Dede? Hey! S-Suga-san!”

“What? You stole it first!”

“You noticed?”

“Of course I noticed, who do you think I am, your father?”

Daichi, who was sipping his wine, minding his own business, sputters it everywhere. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Daichi, dear, I stole at least three onions from your plate, not to mention half your egg and every time you kept eating like nothing happened.”

“What?”

Kaede is almost bent in halves laughing and Ayame too is in no better shape.

“Daddy only notices if it’s meat,” she wheezes between chuckles and now it’s Suga’s turn to cover his mouth in a bout of laughter.

“Yeah, if I tried to steal his meat he’d scratch my eyes right out…”

And they are off again.

Daichi grumbles in his plate and brings his other arm up to shield it from Suga’s attacks. “Look how you’re forcing me to eat!”

“Aw, alright, alright. Here, you can have the last croquette, how does that sound?”

“It sounds only fair.”

“You’re such a big baby…”

Suga takes it to hand it to him, but Daichi circles his wrist with a hand and eats the croquette right off his fingers.

“It really is good,” he says then, and before he lets Suga go he drags the pad of his thumb across his pulse point.

“Well-done, Suga.”

The look Suga throws him from beneath his eyelashes has Daichi’s blood pressure spike to the 4 meters-tall roofs.

 

“There it is, there it is!”

“Sssh, Suga-san!”

“Sorry.”

On the screen Giselle and Robert begin their dance and silence falls in the living room. Ayame rests her cheek on Daichi’s shoulder and sighs. Suga does the same, on the opposite end of the couch where he’s curled up with Kaede.

_“You’re in my arms, and all the world is calm,_

_The music playing on for only two…”_

The storm outside is still running amok but apart from thunder nothing can cover the music.

Daichi was never too fond of this Robert guy, or the actor who plays him, never thought he was that attractive anyway but he has to admit this scene is nice. He turns to look at Suga and smiles when he notices he’s mouthing the words of the song, eyes glued to the TV. He’s smiling too, just a little, but enough to make the dimple in the low corner of his mouth appear.

He really is beautiful…

Daichi swallows and turns his eyes to Giselle and Robert again, just in time to see Nancy cut in on the dance. Giselle climbs the steps to the balcony to look at them – at him – one last time and sighs.

_“You’re sad…”_

_“Oh, no.”_

_“I’ll get your wrap.”_

And then all hell breaks loose.

“Damn it Robert!”

“How can you kiss Nancy when Giselle is standing right there?”

“Men are so stupid!”

“You’re a man too, Suga-san…”

“Then believe me when I say it, I have first-hand experience: men are stupid.”

Ayame nods against Daichi’s shoulder until he stares down at her with raised eyebrows. “Except for you, daddy, and Suga-san of course,” she adds, her grin still a little too cheeky.

Well, if that’s the kind of game she wants to play then who’s Daichi to say no and back away?

“That’s right, Suga-san and I are the only exceptions so I think you should stay away from all men until you’re…well, let’s see…yeah, until you’re thirty, at least.”

“Oh boy…” Suga laughs and Kaede with him.

Ayame doesn’t take it half as well. “Daddy!” she cries and makes a show to go sit next to Suga instead.

Daichi grabs her by the waist and drags her back on the couch next to him, all the while tickling her mercilessly.

“No, dad, no!”

“Yes, dad, yes!” Kaede is on her too in a blink.

“No, not you too, Dede!” she yells between giggles and tears. “Suga-san is more ticklish than I am!”

Daichi and Kaede share a look, then turn to see Suga already on his feet and trying to walk away as stealthily as he can.

“Where do you think you’re going, Suga-san?”

Suga freezes, but doesn’t turn around.

“Yeah Suga. There’s nowhere for you to run.”

Suga tries anyway, but he’s barely reached the laundry room that Daichi is already lifting him up and carrying him back where the kids wait.

 

 

*

 

“I h-hate you…so much,” Suga wheezes. His throat is on fire from all the laughing, there are tears streaming down his face and he’s sure he must be the same color as lobster right now. Not to mention the ache in his sides, that Daichi is still holding steady in his hands. “You,” he points menacingly at Ayame, who goes to hide behind her brother’s back, “you betrayed me!”

“And you!” he points at Daichi now, standing a little too close to him and smiling a little too wide, “I won’t forget about this.”

Daichi makes to say something but suddenly thunder roars, loud, louder, and the entire house seems to shake with it.

Kaede opens one of the curtains and outside the window trees are bent in half under the strength of the wind, so far down they look about to snap.

“Oh, cra…aaab. Oh crab.”

“It’s raining St. Bernards out there!”

“What time is it?”

“10:35.”

Daichi turns away from the storm and fixes Suga with a look that won’t allow objections. “You are staying the night, got me?”

“But-”

“No buts, there’s no way I’m going to let you walk out in the storm!”

“ _Let_ me?” Suga stands to his full height to say it and stares right into Daichi’s eyes.

Daichi falters. “I didn’t mean…you know I didn’t mean…”

Suga cracks much too soon for his taste, but there is something so endlessly endearing in seeing a wholesome man like Daichi Sawamura stutter and trip over his own words in his haste to apologize…

“I know, I know, I was just messing with you.”

“So you’re staying?” It’s three voices in unison that ask, three pairs of pleading eyes Suga is subjected to.

His heart could fill this entire house right now. “Yeah, I mean, it’s really bad out there so if it’s not a bother-”

“It isn’t!”

“Of course it isn’t!”

“You could never be a bother, Suga.”

_I love you…_

He looks away, at the wall, and all he says is ‘alright’.

 

Daichi tries to send the kids to bed then – “you have school tomorrow and I would rather not get calls from your teachers, telling me you fell asleep at your desks!” – but as exhausted as they clearly are, now that they know Suga won’t be leaving for the night they want to stay awake as long as possible. Ayame admits it, after a good five minutes of arguing, and Suga can’t possibly side with Daichi after that.

He proposes they at least finish watching Enchanted – “I can’t remember how it ends, Daichi…” “But if I saw you mouthing along to all the scenes!” – and it’s only his promise to bake more cookies that gets Daichi to cave.

Before he knows it Suga finds himself lying down in a pile among the blankets. Why they all decided to sit on the ground instead of the couch like before, Suga is not quite sure.

But it’s cozy like this. He and Daichi are pressed close, side by side and weighed down by the kids, who lost no time climbing on their laps as soon as Daichi started the movie again. Ayame is wrapped in Suga’s arms, her legs on her father’s lap, and Kaede is sleeping on Daichi’s shoulder. From time to time he’ll open his eyes and blink at the screen, at them, then he’ll close them again, the smallest of smile on his face.

Suga feels warm, like never before in his life. And it has nothing to do with the half a dozen blankets he’s curled on.

Although, seriously now, where did all these blankets even come from?

On screen Prince Edward tells Robert to try kissing Giselle instead and Suga shuts his brain up.

When she wakes, just as the clock strikes midnight, he can’t help another sigh. He doesn’t look away from the movie but he can sense Daichi’s gaze on him, from the corner of his eye he thinks he catches a smile too. He hides his own in Ayame’s hair, but now, like this, he can’t help throwing a glance Daichi’s way, just for a second.

Their eyes meet. They immediately look away…and start laughing

“Sshh!”

“Dad, stop moving…”

God, what has gotten into him today?

Except…it’s not just him. Hasn’t been for a while, has it?

Ayame cheers all of the sudden, a strangely muted sound, signal she’s sleepier than she’d let on, and Suga brings his attention back to the movie.

It’s the end, he missed the fight with the dragon and Edward and Nancy are kissing.

“That’s good, in the end Nancy was nice…” Ayame says between yawns.

“Yes, she was. And now time for bed!”

Daichi gently extracts himself from Kaede’s hold and picks Ayame up in one swift move.

“Daddy!”

“What? This is how a prince carries his princess, isn’t it?”

“You’re so silly!”

Still, Ayame locks her arms around Daichi’s neck. “Now lean down so I can kiss Suga-san goodnight.”

“As you wish, m’lady.”

They almost stumble in the sea of blankets, so Suga springs to his feet instead. Can’t have his lov…um, can’t have these people he likes a normal amount get hurt.

He lets Ayame press a kiss on his cheek, then presses one back on her hair. “Goodnight, little shrimp.”

“You too, Suga-san. Sweet dreams!”

She keeps waving flashingly at him with her best princess wave till she disappears up the stairs, still in her father’s arms.

_Such a card…_

Suga stifles laughter behind his hand not to wake Kaede and turns the TV off.

Now that the house is quiet the sounds of the storm seem to echo in every space of the house. The wind has gotten stronger still and, God, he really hopes the kid are both heavy sleepers…

He folds – messily – the blankets Kaede is not lying on and fixes them on the couch, he fluffs the pillows, then his eyes fall on Kaede again.

He’s sleeping all curled on himself, his neck and arm both in a weird position.

No sound is coming from the stairs, so Daichi is probably having some trouble convincing Ayame to go to sleep. Suga wonders if he could…

He places a hand on Kaede’s shoulder and after a steadying breath he shakes him, as gentle as he can be.

Kaede stiffens under his touch and Suga’s heart skips a beat.

_Please, please, we’ve made so much progress…don’t tell me I screwed up everything, please…_

“Kaede-kun, it’s just me.”

_Don’t pull away please._

“Suga-san?”

Even in the darkness Kaede’s eyes shine like the sun itself. They fix on him and Suga prays they can see him.

“That’s right. Suga-san.”

And Kaede smiles.

He circles Suga’s neck with his arms, rests his cheek on Suga’s collarbone.

Suga sighs, and it’s like he’s walking on a cloud. “Let’s get you to bed, alright?”

They make their way up slowly, and with Kaede’s small weight in his arms Suga can’t remember the last time he felt more euphoric, more uncertain or terrified, all at the same time.

He tucks Kaede into bed and even double-folds the covers before he remembers that really it doesn’t matter, Kaede will probably kick them away in about five minutes. He smooths the wrinkles with the palm of his hand three times, and Kaede lets him. He’s probably noticed how nervous Suga is and decided to take pity on him.

God, he’s making a fool of himself.

“Can I keep the light on?” Kaede asks and Suga nods, turns it on for him.

“Well then, goodnight?”

He leans down and pushes Kaede’s bangs away from his face.

“Goodnight, Suga-san…”

Kaede is still smiling, he hasn’t stopped since. Suga smiles back and hopes it’s not too shaky, as shaky as he feels, and leaves the room in quiet steps.

He meets Daichi right outside the door and something in the way the man is looking at him tells him Daichi saw everything. He blushes and walks right around him, directed to Ayame’s room.

There too, he fixes the covers till they are perfectly straight – he doesn’t know why he cares so much all of a sudden, when he’s always been a bit of a slob himself. Ayame doesn’t stir, not even when Suga presses a kiss on her temple.

“Sleep tight.”

He closes the door behind him and hears Daichi do the same by Kaede’s bedroom.

They lean together on the wall that separates the children’s rooms and stay there till their knees begin to ache. They don’t say anything, but the arm Daichi throws around his waist helps Suga find his balance once again.

How could he lose it, when he’s standing perfectly still?

 

“I couldn’t possibly take your bed!”

“You can and you will, Suga.”

“But you’re taller than I am and, you know, wider, so-”

“Are you saying I’m fat?”

“No, I’m saying that I would fit better on the couch than you because you are built like a brick shithouse!”

Silence falls and Suga puts his hands on his hips, ready to bicker for as long as it’ll take to convince this stubborn man to cave.

As expected Daichi does the same, his gaze just as unwavering.

“What kind of host would I be if I let a guest sleep on the couch?”

“A guest? Daichi, it’s me. Suga. I spend more time in this house than you do.”

“Doesn’t matter, you still don’t usually sleep here and for your first time I want the experience to be as good and satisfactory as possible.”

He pauses, he mentally reviews what he just said. Suga makes to speak and he immediately raises a hand to stop him. “I know, ok? I heard it.”

Suga pinches the bridge of his nose to cover his snort but his shoulders have already started to shake.

“Oh shut up!”

With each passing moment Daichi gets a little redder, a little more embarrassed. In an attempt to regain some composure he looks around, and his eyes fall somewhere on the chest on the opposite side of the room.

“We’ll flip a coin!”

“What?”

“To decide who gets the bed, we’ll flip a coin.”

“No, Daichi, I told you I don’t want to sl-”

“Heads or tails?”

“…sleep in your bed, it wouldn’t be-”

“Heads or tails?”

Daichi flips the coin anyway.

“…appropriate- TAILS!”

The coin lands on Daichi’s hand and he smirks. “Heads. Sorry, Suga.”

He’s not sorry at all, the smug, charming bastard. Being all charming and kind, insisting that Suga take the bed.

“You cheated,” he mutters. He must have, Daichi never wins at this kind of stuff.

“At coin toss?”

“Yes, let me see that coin.”

Daichi throws it at him, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. And then, like the smug, charming bastard he is, he makes his way to the closet to get Suga some clothes to sleep in.

The coin is legit, a real 100 yen coin, with the 100 on one side and the sakura blossoms on the other. Damn it.

“Alright, then I want a rematch!”

Daichi sighs.

They flip three more times. Suga chooses heads, then tails, then heads again. He’s the one to throw each time, and before the last throw he even insists on using another coin. He always loses.

“I don’t know why you’re being so difficult. My bed is comfortable, and large. And here,” he shows him the clean, crispy bed sheets he’d taken from the last drawer of the chest, “you’ll be getting fresh clean sheets too!”

Suga bites the inside of his lip and nods. Daichi is right, he’s being such a baby about this. It’s just a bed. The bed Daichi falls asleep on every night, the bed he wakes up in, groggy and messy-headed, adorably rumpled…

Daichi passes him the opposite end of the sheet and Suga misses it. He hurries to pick it up but all the while they are making the bed Daichi keeps throwing curious looks his way.

“Well then, goodnight?” Daichi says, sounding as uncertain as Suga feels.

“Yeah, goodnight.”

Suga opens the door for him and stalls. He’s not tired, not really, he doesn’t want to say goodnight quite yet. But Daichi has work tomorrow morning and he’s already stuck sleeping on the bloody couch, Suga can’t just keep him up because he’s a clingy fool.

So he takes another pillow from the bed and places it on top of the pile of sheets and pillows already in Daichi’s arms. “Goodnight,” he says again.

Daichi smiles. “Goodnight, Suga.”

Only when the door is safely closed behind him, Suga lets a sigh fall from his lips.

He makes his way to the bed – _Daichi’s_ _bed,_ _Daichi’s_ _bed_ – slowly. It really is comfortable. Soft, but not too soft. Big. The sheets are blue, lovely against his skin and they smell fresh.

White musk. The same fragrance Daichi uses for his clothes.

Lulled by it, Suga’s mind turns quiet. All tension leaves him, as his body turns heavy on the mattress. His eyelashes too feel heavy. He tries closing them and finds they are better this way.

He breathes in the familiar scent all around him and before long he’s fast asleep, hands curled around the sheets.

 

“Mom! Mom, is that you?”

She doesn’t answer. Seated on the blue carriage with her back perfectly straight, her chin high, she blinks and doesn’t say a word.

Around them the world keeps spinning.

Suga stumbles and leans on a horse not to fall. After a moment of hesitation he climbs on its back, hands clenched white around the golden pole that steadies it mid-air.

“Where are we? What the hell is this place?” he screams in the wind, at her.

Again she doesn’t answer. She gives no indication she’s heard him at all. Suga grits his teeth and says nothing more.

What good would it do anyway?

So he rides, one with the carousel, at the same pace. Some paint gives in under his nails, and the wood underneath is as dark as Daichi’s eyes. He rests his forehead on the pole and wills himself to wake.

There’s no point in staying here now. Not anymore.

Before opening his eyes, though, he chances one last glance at her.

She’s still there. For a moment she turns, finally toward him, and looks back at him. Her eyes are blue, two oceans in a sea of white. In a sea of nothing.

So different from his own…

He can still see them in the darkness of the bedroom. For a moment they occupy every corner of his mind. Then he fists the sheets, tight in both hands, and the corners become one. One corner, where he has stashed every memory – fake and real – he has of her.

She had blue eyes. Smaller than his own, but with the same thick crown of eyelashes to shield them from the sunlight.

She was beautiful. He has her nose, and her hair. The shape of their face is similar, and so is that of their ears.

Suga locks her face away, where he knows it’ll be safe, and stands from the bed on uncertain legs.

He needs some water, his throat feels dry, scratchy like sandpaper.

He tiptoes out of the room, silently wishing the noises of the storm will cover his steps.

If Daichi even stirs because of him he gets right back to bed. The poor man doesn’t need to be woken up in the middle of the night like this. He’s got to start work at 8.

_If…_ , Suga looks outside the window and winces when the thin branch of a tree snaps in halves, _if_ _the weather tomorrow will permit people to set foot in the outside world._

He climbs down the stairs as silently as he can, one hand glued to the wall for support, but when he peeks into the living room he notices a feeble light coming from the kitchen.

For whatever reason his heart speeds up as he makes his way toward it.

 

Sure enough it’s Daichi’s voice that greets him. “Hey.”

“Hey to you too.”

“What are you doing still up?”

Suga shrugs and the shirt – Daichi’s shirt – slips from his shoulder. He pulls it back up with one hand but it only falls from his other shoulder then.

Daichi follows it with his eyes both times and Suga’s skin begins to tingle where his gaze rests. “What about you? Why are you still up?”

Daichi shrugs back and smirks when Suga huffs. “Thunder woke me up,” he says at last and gestures for Suga to sit next to him.

Without asking he drags his mug across the counter, toward him. Suga grabs it and takes a sip of what, in the semi darkness, looks like black tea. He smiles when it’s revealed to be something else entirely.

Hot chocolate, perfectly thick and comforting, not too sweet, just the way Suga likes it.

Perfect, except…

“All it needs is some whipped cream.”

Daichi snaps his fingers like it only just occurred to him. “I knew something was missing!”

Suga shakes his head and stands to get some. He also takes a mug for himself, the one with sea horses that has unofficially become his own. “Thank God you have me, Daichi.”

It’s meant to be a joke, but the way Daichi whispers ‘’yeah’’ sounds a little too genuine, a little too earnest. It makes Suga’s entire body ache.

“I was trying to console myself,” Daichi explains, taking a sip of his newly improved cocoa, “I initially got up just for a glass of water but in the dark I hit my pinky toe on the edge of the island.”

Suga winces in sympathy and Daichi nods solemnly at him. The face of a man who has endured the impossible. “Yeah. Had to bite my lip not to cry out and wake the whole neighborhood up.”

“Poor you,” Suga coos.

“Why does it hurt so freaking much though, I wonder. This and paper cuts, that’s another thing I can’t wrap my head around.”

“You are right, you are right! God, I swear it was less painful when I got my tattoo done than any time I cut the pads of my fingers on some obnoxiously thin-papered hundred-years-old book.”

Daichi, who was nodding along, suddenly freezes and gives him a wild-eyed look. “Y-you…you have a tattoo?” his voice comes out strangled. “Where, um, I’ve never seen it…”

Suga smirks behind the brim of his mug and looks back at Daichi through the veil of his eyelashes. “Well, you see, it’s not exactly in a place I…show in public.”

Daichi nearly chokes on his cocoa. Suga pats his back to help but it still takes him a good minute to regain his composure. Red in the face and up to the tips of his ears, his eyes are black when he finally fixes them back in Suga’s.

Suga smiles his most innocent smile at him. “I meant on my foot, Daichi- _san_.”

Daichi’s gaze falls to his lips, then down to the line of his neck. To his shoulder, still bare, and stops on his feet, almost entirely covered by the hem of _his_ sweatpants.

“Do you want to see it?”

He doesn’t even wait for Daichi to nod. He pulls up his pants, just enough they bare his ankles, and in one swift move rests both his feet on Daichi’s thigh. A bout of confidence, that leaves him as soon as the deed is done.

Suddenly afraid he’s pushed – is pushing – this too far, he makes to shift and rest them on an empty stool instead but then Daichi rests a warm, gentle hand on the arc of his not inked foot and his heart settles. On a fast, racing pace.

“It’s gorgeous,” Daichi whispers under his breath, eyes only for the crow that covers half one side of Suga’s left foot. It is gorgeous in its simplicity, just the black shadow of a crow, infinite wings of black and blue steel spread in the canvas that is his skin. Daichi thumbs at the tips of them, and looks up when Suga shivers.

“Now will you tell me what it is that woke you up?” he murmurs, completely out of nowhere.

It blindsides him, Suga’s body freezes. “What brought this on?”

“If you don’t want to it’s fine…”

“No, I…I didn’t say that. I just, want to know. Why you think it’s something I need to talk about.”

Daichi shrugs, but it’s not casual the way it had been before. “You had a weird look in your eyes earlier.”

_Oh._

“Oh.”

“You get it sometimes, when you think no one will notice. Kind of sad, like you’re remembering something you would rather brush away.”

But he noticed. Daichi noticed.

Two months.

It’s been two months since they first met and this man, one by one, is picking at all the layers Suga hides beneath, with a gentleness Suga has never found or hoped for himself. And Suga lets him, every day a little more, he lets this man look at all that is him. Terrified that he’ll disappoint him or let him down, still he lets him. And today too. Today will be no exception.

Because he’s tired, because he’s ready.

So he tells him. “I had a dream about my mother.”

Daichi doesn’t seem surprised. He nods like he’s known all along, he caresses the inside of Suga’s ankle like he has no idea how to respond, uncertain as though he wants to do much more. “I see. Was it bad?”

He’s clumsy with his words like he is with his fingertips. It’s endearing, and sweet. Suga stands a little straighter. “No. Not really.”

He closes his eyes for a moment and at once she appears behind his eyelids, pale skin and pixie features. With a sigh he opens them again and there is only Daichi now. Only Daichi. “I saw her face today.”

_I saw her._

“Usually she’s just a blur of colors wearing a long white dress, but today…I never, I don’t remember it ever being so clear.” He shakes his head, he wants to laugh. “God, I’m not even sure it was _her_ face…”

_What if it’s not?_

“Did she look like you? In your dream, I mean.”

Silence, then “Yes. A little.”

A lot, but for the eyes.

“She had blue eyes, though.”

It’s important. Why is it so important?

“I didn’t remember that, usually when I try to picture her all she is is a female version of myself. My eyes, my chin, even my moles. But she wasn’t now, tonight. She was…real. She was a person.”

But what if it was all wrong? What if he does have her eyes, like he does her chin, like he does her nose. Her hair, her ears.

“I see.”

“Only, I…I don’t know if that’s the person she was.”

_I don’t know if I want her to stop being a blur. To stop being the monster in the fairytale, looming about, more shadow than shape._

_I don’t know._

“And you don’t…you don’t remember her at all?”

Daichi’s hand is still on his foot, his eyes always on him. He’s never stopped touching him, he’s never stopped looking at him.

Suga tries to shrug, but his shoulders feel too heavy. “I was four when she left. I get flashes sometimes, of her hands tugging down my shirt, of the way she used to sit. But I don’t know if they are real memories, or things I made up during the years.”

“Don’t you have pictures?”

Again, the inexplicable urge to laugh. It’s normal for Daichi to ask such a question, to sound so distraught about it – although he did try to hide it – but normal is not something Suga and his father ever took in consideration. It’s impossible to, when all you want to do is bury a part of your life away.

“No. Well, my father must but I never saw them, and I never asked. I never asked about her.”

His hands have started to shake. It’s subtle, but it’s there. He can feel it rising to his arms, his shoulders. Deep inside his chest his heart seems to rattle with it, like the toy hidden – trapped – in a tin box. Shaken by a kid who’s eager to know what’s inside.

“I never asked him why she left, not once after I graduated kindergarten. Not once since I can remember. I don’t know what she looked like. How she was, with him, with me.”

He clasps his hands tight on his lap. He hates that he can’t stop them.”I don’t know how tall she was. I don’t know why my father still loves her so much. I don’t know why we weren’t a good enough reason for her to stay.”

He admits it. How much of a coward he really is.

“I don’t know anything.”

And now it’s his voice that is shaking and he hates this too. He hates…

“I hate her. I hate that I can’t find the guts to ask, that…that I’m too afraid I might stop hating her if I do.”

“And I hate myself for hating her. I don’t want something so ugly to be inside of me.”

A sob breaks past his lips and he looks away, to the darkness that surrounds them. The storm still rages outside, gives no impression that it wants to stop, and now Daichi knows the kind of person he is. Hateful, small. A coward. Daichi knows and he’s never going to look at him the same way. He thought he was ready for this, ready to talk but he went too far. He said too much and now Daichi will not want to have anything to do with him.

The trees outside the window become just a blur.

He’s such an idiot. Such a complete, fucking moron.

Lightning strikes. It flashes before his eyes as two fingers cup his chin.

“Suga…”

He closes his eyes at the gentleness in Daichi’s tone, he shakes his head at it. He doesn’t deserve it.

“Suga, look at me. Please?”

 He does, but only because Daichi asked.

“I don’t believe that, not for a second.”

“You don’t believe what?”

The way Daichi is looking at him makes it hard for him to breath. A tear has gotten caught between his eyelashes and it reflects the feeble light of the kitchen hood, he wants to blink it away but he can’t.

Blinking would mean missing the tenderness in Daichi’s gaze and he doesn’t want to. Not even for a second.

“That you hate her. I wouldn’t blame you if you did, who could after what she did to you, to your father. But you don’t, so please don’t…don’t hate yourself for it. God, Suga, how can you hate yourself…”

He whispers the last part, almost to himself, and the line of his mouth is tight, pained. Like he’s suffering from it, from Suga’s pain.

“You are not capable of it. The fact that you feel so guilty for it is proof enough.”

“If I don’t feel it then why would I be guilty?”

Why is Daichi saying these things? Why, when he knows _nothing_?

Suga hates her, he hates her.

He resents her, he’s furious with her for never trying to reach out. If she had, he would have had a reason, an opportunity to forgive her, but now, as things are, it’s impossible for him to and he…he can’t stand it. He can’t stand that his mother is the one person he can’t forgive.

And he hates her for this.

“I don’t know, I don’t know why you feel this way but I think…I think you are the kind of person who wants to shoulder the blame all by himself. And you don’t…you don’t see the beauty in you, you are so focused on the bad that you don’t see it. You try so hard to find it in others, but when it’s yours you don’t recognize it.”

“And your anger…you are so angry for still feeling so angry with her that you turned that simple, understandable anger in hatred.”

Daichi’s hand has fallen from Suga’s chin to cover his ankle again. His words sting the way antiseptics do to an open wound.

“You sure think you know me.” He can’t hide the bitterness in his voice, the skepticism.

Daichi doesn’t flinch. “I don’t. I would love to, I…I would _like_ to know everything. But I know this much, and I’m sure of it. I never saw hatred in your eyes. But I saw your anger, and just as clear I saw your longing.”

_Longing._

Suga looks away again and steels his spine for the question he’s about to ask. For the answer he’s bound to receive. “But if I did, if…if I did hate her, would you still…?”

_Look at me the way you are now…_

“Yes.”

Immediate, sure.

“And you don’t…you don’t think I’m a coward, for never asking my father about her?”

“No.”

Daichi speaks and the shaking stops. “I don’t think it’s coward, not wanting to suffer. Especially considering how much you’ve had to suffer already.”

Suga swallows down his heart and it falls back into place, right where it belongs. Whether that’s inside his chest, or in Daichi’s open palms he doesn’t know. But he knows it’ll be fine.

“Were you that scared my opinion of you would change?”

He smiles. “I wasn’t scared. I was terrified of it.”

“Don’t be.”

Daichi squeezes his calf and the warmth of his hand Suga feels it all the way through his toes, the tips of his hair. It was stupid of him, so stupid, falling for this man, but inevitable. Now it hits him, that of no use would have been avoiding him, leaving the house as soon as Daichi came back, keeping it cordial but not friendly because it would have happened anyway. It would have taken him longer, several months, or even years, but he still would have found himself here, with this feeling tied behind his shoulder blades.

And it’s not scary, not as scary as it used to be.

He puts his feet down, on the cold ceramic floor and fakes a yawn. “Now that the rain has stopped it should be easier to fall asleep.”

Daichi nods but he looks lost, still stuck in the moment past. He opens his mouth to say something more, but then he closes it again just as fast. The clock is almost completely covering the 4, so all he shakes his head and sighs, wishes him goodnight.

“Goodnight, Daichi,” Suga says and before he can talk himself out of it he leans down and presses a kiss on his cheek.

Beneath his palms Daichi’s shoulders shake and he squeezes them to stop it. His lips are so close to the corner of Daichi’s mouth that when Daichi lets out another sigh it feels like its own.

Daichi’s skin is hot under his touch, and the more he lingers the hotter it gets.

He moves away after hours, the blink of an eye. The tip of his nose bumps against Daichi’s and he stands upright. “Goodnight,” he says again.

Daichi’s voice trembles and breaks around one, simple word. “Y-yeah.”

Suga walks away hiding a smile behind his sleeve.

 

 

Friday

 

Daichi gets to the office in a daze. He throws the umbrella in the stand and for the first time in years he misses. It hits the rim and bounces, falls to the ground in a splash that dirties his pants to the knee.

Daichi collects it with a shrug and shoves it inside till it’s nearly stuck between the others.

When he catches sight of Tanaka, standing guard by the elevators he nods and asks him to follow him to his office. Tanaka accepts and he looks as relieved as Daichi feels that the silence streak is being put an end to.

Once inside, door shut and locked, Daichi sits and gestures for Tanaka to do the same.

It takes a moment to get the words out but when he does all Tanaka has for him is an understanding smile, no traces of smugness or resentment in his face, in the way he pats Daichi’s shoulder.

“You were right, I’m an idiot. The biggest fucking idiot.”

His cheek is still tingling where Suga had kissed it, hasn’t stopped since.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this makes up for the shortness of the previous half!


	17. As vivid as it truly is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aftermath.

“Well, well, well, don’t we look pleased today...”

It’s the first thing Mrs. Devaux tells him as soon as she sets eyes on him, an all too wide smile on her face. Suga stops to stare at a hibiscus on one of the top shelves by the counter and tries not to focus too much on the fact that he’s already turning the same color as its petals.

Stupid pale skin, giving him away every bloody time.

And there’s not even that much to _give_ away, for goodness’ sake.

Ok, no. That’s not true.

Staying up late talking with Daichi, that wasn’t nothing. Kissing his cheek and feeling Daichi react, respond to his nearness the way Suga has to Daichi’s own for months, that wasn’t nothing. And the look Daichi had given him when they’d said goodbye in the morning…

It is much to give away. That Daichi still looks at him the same way – except not, except it’s more tender – now that Suga has bared to him the parts he most hates of himself. It’s…it’s everything.

Hours later, days later, it still sends Suga reeling. Smiling into his coffee mug until Tooru throws a cloth at him and tells him to ‘’drink that already’’.

“Come sit, Koushi-kun.”

Or making him completely forget where he is, lost as he gets in his own head. “Uh?”

Mrs. Devaux’s smile turns to laughter and she pats the chair beside her. “Help me with this arrangement, won’t you?”

He hurries to her and almost upends a vase with his bag, because clearly he hasn’t made a big enough fool of himself these past few minutes.

Orange tulips and bright yellow dandelions cover the near entirety of the counter. Thin branches of baby’s breath are scattered everywhere, as far as Suga’s eyes can see.

Mrs. Devaux is not exactly the most organized of people. Suga can relate.

On her order he holds the tulips in place, at the very centre of the composition so that she can place the dandelions all around them like a crown.

“Not really a combination I would have picked,” Mrs. Devaux tells him with a shrug, “but the client is always right, and this boy seemed to have his reasons, went straight for these flowers, didn’t look at anything else on display.”

”I think it’s pretty.”

Suga steps back a little to admire the liveliness of it and smiles. “Some color is needed after days of grey.”

Days, months, years.

“On that I certainly agree. I think I’ve forgotten what the sun looks like!”

The sun, right. The weather. That’s what she thinks he’s talking about, what he should have meant.

But…

“I’m fine with this rain, to be honest.”

Clad in his new rain coat Suga hadn’t even noticed it falling, on him, all around him. Stepping out of his apartment, all he’d noticed was the beating of his heart. Steady, light.

Ayame kissing him goodbye, clinging to him even though it’ll only be a matter of hours before they get to see each other again. Kaede smiling, wide, not at all shy, just for him. Daichi…

Orange, white and yellow glow under the neon lights of the shop, so bright they almost hurt his eyes.

The sun? It can stay hidden for a little while longer, Suga won’t mind.

“There it is again.”

Suga jumps and looks at Mrs. Devaux, guilty. Damn, he drifted off again…

“W-what?”

“That smile.”

She gestures to his face and there is a tenderness in her eyes Suga has seen before, somewhere, sometime. She sits the vase on the floor with a smile of her own. “It’s been a long time since I last wore it myself, but it’s impossible not to recognize.”

He is an open book, has been since the beginning to her. “Yeah,” is all he says. There is no point in denying it.

He doesn’t _want_ to deny it.

“I was doomed from the start, really.”

He shoves his hands in his pockets and shrugs. His eyes fall to every flower around him but stop on none. A patchwork of colors, the way his mind feels. Only every color he envisions is perfectly shaped to a detail, recognizable, defined. He’s dizzy with it, overwhelmed, but he’s not confused.

“I spent the night over the other day, because of the storm. Daichi,” he smiles again, wider, “Daichi asked me but really, he’d already decided. So I stayed.”

“And the kids…?”

He flushes at the implication in Mrs. Devaux’s voice. No, it’s not…it’s not like that. This isn’t about that. “T-they were there too. We watched a movie all together. Enchanted, the one from Disney…?”

He waits for her to nod, then “I got to put them to bed.”

His last words are a whisper and his heart gives a start at the simple memory of how it had felt, staying with them till the end of the day. Tucking them in.

Kaede sleeps with a little light on and Ayame, she kicks away the blankets till they are all lying in a pile on the floor. He hadn’t known that before. Now he does.

“Daichi and I talked until four. He’d made cocoa and never thought of adding some whipped cream on top until I told him.”

“Such an idiot,” he huffs, he wants to scream. He wants to scream _it_ from every rooftop in Tokyo.

“Oh, Koushi-kun…”

He looks back to Mrs. Devaux and gapes at the brightness of her eyes. “Mrs. Devaux, are you…?”

_Crying?_

She laughs, a wet, shaky sound, and tries to wave his concern away. “Forgive me, Koushi-kun, I’m just an old woman…” she says and dabs her eyes with the thin wrap she’s wearing around her shoulders. The circles of nacre tinkle at the movement and catch the neon lights to create rainbows.

“It’s just…so lovely, getting to see you like this.”

He makes his way back to her and puts an arm around her shoulders. It’s good too, feeling like this. Allowing himself to live a feeling he’s never known, with the chilling fear that comes with it, that comes with the possibility of messing up, it’s good. _Having_ something he’s so scared to mess up, it’s good. More than good.

“I thought you would tell me to be careful, the way you did that night weeks ago.”

“You do. You have to be careful, Koushi-kun.” She takes his hand in hers and squeezes it, surprisingly strong, predictably tender. “But not too much. Not so much that it forbids you to live.”

She looks up at him and her smile is familiar, as is the crinkling of her eyes. “Happiness is never within reach for those who keep caged in their own fears.”

Suga pokes at a lonely dandelion forgotten on the counter. “That’s deep. Where did you read it?”

Mrs. Devaux laughs and the last of her tears vanish. “Smarty-pants.”

He laughs with her and they only stop when the chimes above the shop door sing and a new customer arrives, shaking her umbrella not to make a puddle.

Happiness is within his reach now.

Daichi had closed his eyes when Suga had kissed him, just for a moment, just as he’d started to pull away.

Has been for some time.

 

 

*

 

Daichi looks out the window and can’t repress a sigh. It’s still raining, but rain is all there is. Steady, straight, no wind to be heard. It’s been like this ever since the storm, days ago. Just rain, not strong enough to justify another invitation to stay.

Rain, everyone stuck inside.

Bored kids don’t give a chance to get the object of your interest alone, especially if the object of your interest is the only person capable of keeping them entertained.

But the way Suga has been smiling at him lately…

Their eyes will catch from opposite sides of the room – Daichi doesn’t trust himself to stand too close – from time to time and Suga will look down, for just a second, his eyelashes casting shadows on reddening cheeks, and smile, so small only the dimple near his bottom lip shows. Then he’ll look up again and it’s like they are sharing a secret. Suddenly they are back in the dark of the kitchen and all is quiet but for them, all is still but for Daichi’s hands on the arc of Suga’s foot, Suga’s lips moving around the truth.

That had been Suga, then, in their – _his,_ _Daichi’s_ – kitchen. Completely bared and completely honest. And he had taken Daichi’s breath away. The same way he has ever since, with the easy way he smiles and the even easier way he carries himself.

There is freedom in being yourself.

Who told him that? Maybe his father, Daichi is not sure. But it’s true, it’s true here.

If only Daichi had realized from the beginning what it is that has been in front of his eyes for months, maybe it would have spared them some time. Spared Suga the fear that Daichi would think less of him if he were to show his anger, his insecurities, his whole.

Just a crush.

No. It could have never been just that, it couldn’t have stopped there. If it was a month ago, it’s not just now. Because he knows it, because he feels it. He recognizes it, and yet it’s something so completely new and huge and scary. He’s surrounded by it, it’s everywhere he looks, it’s in everything he sees.

A drop hits the glass windows and just as it seems to have been crushed against it, here it is, streaming down and being joined by more drops, joining in. It keeps falling down and it’s twice its previous size.

It stops only when it’s hit the pane, becoming one with the water that has gathered there.

Daichi had wanted to fight the storm, the entire world, when that sob had broken past Suga’s lips. He’d wanted to lock them inside, inside their house, and take all the pain of the world on his shoulders if only that would have served to get that toll off of Suga.

Except Suga doesn’t need that. Because Suga is stronger than he is, always has been. Since he was too young to understand the reason why he had to be.

A coward.

Afraid of Daichi’s judgment, afraid of being a letdown.

Daichi hates that he thought of that, he hates it. He hates that Suga thinks so little of himself, that he can’t see himself the way Daichi sees him. An absolute pain in the ass, changeable like the weather but still, always a steady source of support.

If it hadn’t been for him, how would these last few months have been?

He shivers just thinking about it.

“Um, Sawamura-san?”

Daichi turns, so fast he nearly gives himself a whiplash, and stares into Ennoshita’s startled face. “I, um, sorry to barge in, Sawamura-san, but I tried calling you. Twice.”

Daichi stares at the phone on his desk, not five inches away from him. He hadn’t even heard it.

“I’m sorry, my…my mind was somewhere else.”

Ennoshita nods and there is a serenely knowing smile on his face. “I understand.”

Of course he does. He’s got that boy, whose name he was very careful to never give away, he probably has more experience on these things than Daichi does.

God, that’s so sad…

“So…what, what is it you needed to tell me, Ennoshita?”

Still that smile that’s more of a smirk.

“Moniwa-san is here. Should I tell him to wait a while longer or is your mind willing to come back from the…lovely place it was stuck in?”

At Daichi’s glare Ennoshita closes the door behind him with a start and calls for Moniwa-san to go in.

Spending time with Tanaka and Nishinoya didn’t do the guy any good. He was never this disrespectful before.

Moniwa-san greets him and Daichi can’t hold back another sigh as he stands up to shake hands with the man.

It _was_ a lovely place, where his mind was wandering.

The loveliest.

 

 

*

 

“Disney made a movie about her…”

“Pocahontas. Mulan. Esmeralda!”

“No, she had red hair!”

“Oh, oh! Ariel!”

“Yes, but what was she, before she got her legs?”

“Mermaid! She was a mermaid!”

“YES! Next, you put it in your coffee!”

“Cream? Milk? A spoon!”

Suga sighs and braces himself to make the pun he’s always loathed. “It kind of sounds like my name.”

“SUGAR!”

“Time is up!”

Ayame puts the hourglass down and takes note of the six words Kaede managed to guess.

Taboo was the only game those two could agree on, as another rainy day forbids them to set foot outside and from the start Suga was quick to clarify that no, today there would be no dolling him up in any way.

Monopoly was out immediately, Suga – much like many people in this world – doesn’t have a single good memory linked to this game, and the kids too got a weird look in their eyes when Suga showed them the box.

Something about Daichi marching out of the room and threatening one of his cousins to get him to swallow his ‘’bloody mushroom’’ Suga is not quite sure.

Same happened with Pictionary – Ayame actually glared at him when Suga dared suggest it again – and Scrabble, Suga was the first to throw that bore away.

So Taboo it was and since only the three of them they are too few to split into two proper teams, Suga was unanimously elected the ‘’giver’’ to give clues alternately to Ayame and Kaede. Who of the two manages to guess more words wins.

Easy as pie, except not so much.

“There were still some grains in the glass, Aya!”

“Yeah, like two, and then they slipped down. It’s not like you could have guessed anything in that time!”

“Still, you cheated!”

“I did not!”

“Oy!”

That’s enough for the both of them to fall quiet and as they turn to stare at him Suga makes sure to wear his best ‘son, I’m disappointed’ look. “I get that you are bored, that you are tired of this rain and all but you can’t jump at each other’s throats every single time the other does or says something!”

The kids look down at the floor and Suga sighs. God, how does Daichi do this? Every damn time Suga has to scold these two it’s like his heart is being ripped in pieces.

“Ayame didn’t cheat, Kaede-kun. I was looking at the hourglass too, and if it wasn’t 100% empty it was close, I wouldn’t have had the time to even pick another card, let alone come up with a definition.”

“If you say so…”

“I say so, and your sister did too.”

He’s about to say more, but before he can Kaede nods and looks back at his sister. “I’m sorry, Aya.”

_There you go._

“It’s alright, Dede.”

“Ok, now hug!”

“Don’t push it, Suga-san!”

“Alright, alright.”

He raises his palms in defeat but in truth it’s enough, seeing the way they are smiling at each other now, sort of sheepish, a little awkward. It’s only fair that brothers and sisters have their fights, but these two have grown up used to being a unit, Ayame and Kaede against the world. Or, to hear Daichi tell it, Ayame and Kaede against bad nannies.

Their fights never last too long.

“Come on!” Ayame tells her brother and gives her fist to bump. Kaede does, and just like that they are ready for another round.

It’s really in a kid’s character, to forgive and forget so quickly. It was never in his own though.

But then again, having two parents probably helps with that. Especially if one of them is as extraordinary as Daichi.

_Oh God, here we go again…_

“Suga-san, why are you all red?”

_Because I’m a stupid man who can’t stop himself from gushing over you or your father at any given time._

“Nothing, just…feeling hot, that’s all. So, Ayame you’re next, right?”

“Yes!”

“Kaede, get the time.”

“Uh-uh.”

“Ok, first definition: a flat piece of wood teenagers roll around on.”

“Oh! Uh…skateboard!”

“Yes! Next: you have a bobby pin with this animal on!”

“Shrimp! No, octopus! Um…starfish?”

“It’s orange.”

“Clownfish!”

“Yes! Next…”

 

 

*

 

Daichi drags himself out of his office and texts Hinata to bring beer along with his usual bottle of water.

Blindsided partners who were given no time to prepare before getting slapped in the face with divorce papers are the worst to deal with. Daichi has been doing this job for nearly a decade and he still hasn’t found a way to that will work on everyone.

Some need sympathy, a person who will listen to their complaints and their hurt. Some resent it, already caught in a moment of vulnerability they just can’t stand to show more. And some others need harsh words and truths not to swallow in self-pity and fall apart.

If only it were written on their foreheads, in huge block letters, just what role they want Daichi to play…

“Woah, Daichi-san, you look like shit. Rough morning?”

Daichi nods at Nishinoya’s words and lets himself fall on a chair in the corner of the surveillance room, away from the blue glow of the monitors. “Yeah, you could say that.”

When he says nothing more Nishinoya resumes his conversation with Tanaka about…yes, about how many doughnuts he can fit in his mouth.

“Five? There is no fucking way, Noyassan!”

“I’m telling you, Ryuu, I trained for this!”

Just as he says it he takes the first doughnut in his hand and brings it to his mouth. Daichi looks away and wills Hinata to come soon. They already did this stuff with Oreos and the image of Nishinoya with his cheeks stuffed and teeth stained black is something that still haunts him, almost as terrifying as the vice-principal’s flying wig.

A familiar head of messy orange hair appears in one of the monitors and Daichi hurries to wave Hinata inside. “Thank God you are here!” he whispers in the – very confused - boy’s ear and pulls him inside with him.

Without even waiting for Hinata to hand him the screw he has in his pockets he brings the bottle to his lips and bites the cap off. The first drops of beer, perfectly cold and bittersweet, fall easily down his throat and he can’t help a pleased sigh once he finally puts the bottle down.

“That’s better.”

“Needed that, uh?”

“You have no idea, Tanaka.”

He thanks Hinata with a quick nod and stops when he sees the boy looking at him with something akin to terror in his eyes. He’s holding his cheek as though just the sight of Daichi opening the bottle with his teeth has given him a toothache.

Tanaka and Nishinoya laugh at him and pat his shoulders in comfort, although with a little too much force. Nishinoya is still trying to chew down his doughnuts.

“Do you believe our stories now?” Tanaka asks with a smirk, that explodes into laughter when Hinata gives a muted nod.

The words take a moment to register into Daichi’s brain but when they do he stiffens.

“What stories? What are you talking about?”

Nishinoya throws a wild-eyed look Tanaka’s way, if he could speak right now he would be probably screaming something along the lines of ‘are you a fucking moron?’. Tanaka seems to have understood that as well because he has paled and is stuttering around an apology. Hinata is now using his body as a shield.

“Um, w-what stories? Who said anything about stories?”

“You did.”

Daichi takes a step forward and then one more, till he’s standing almost nose to nose with him. Dread and irritation set and boil in his stomach.

“I-it was just a joke, Daichi-san…”

“Yeah, you know me, Daichi-san. Always joking, ah ah…”

Daichi turns his gaze to Hinata, who seems to shrink under the weight of it. He keeps tugging at Tanaka’s shirt to get him to back away from him. “I-I’m going to cry,” he whispers, but not soft enough, “just like that little girl at the Sakanoshita…”

“Hinata, keep quiet!”

Daichi freezes.

The Sakanoshita. The little girl in front of the Sakanoshita. They told Hinata of that time back in high school when he’d scolded them so thoroughly for putting that indecent poster in the locker room he’d made a little girl standing nearby cry and run away to hide behind her mother’s skirt.

They told…

“ _You_ …”

They make to run out the door but Daichi covers it with his body, crosses his arms on his chest and squares his shoulders. When they all look up at him he smirks. “Let’s see if I can make grown men cry too…”

They all swallow in unison.

He opens his mouth to speak, ready to give the scolding of his life but just as the first words come to him – “you have betrayed all that is sacred, all that is valuable in the making of a team” – his phone buzzes.

He fishes it from his pocket, all the while glaring at them, a challenge to dare them to relax or try again to leave. He scrolls to go to his desktop and…

It’s a picture of Suga, sent from Ayame’s phone.

The message is full of emojis Daichi doesn’t understand and the just as cryptic text ‘the word was cheerleader’.

Suga is standing on one leg, the other raised and bent at waist height. He’s pointing at the camera and holding two throw pillows like they are pom-poms. Daichi zooms on his face, on his lips pursed in a kiss and on the teasing wink he’s aiming his way – _the_ _camera’s_ _way_.

All irritation leaves him, all the fight, and suddenly he’s lighter than air. He sighs. He only manages to save the picture in his ‘favorites’ folder before he falls back to his chair, like minutes ago only not at all. There’s a strange, pleasant fluttering in his stomach.

He refuses to call them butterflies, he’s 33 years old for goodness’ sake.

“Um, D-Daichi-san?”

“What?”

Nishinoya and Hinata share a perplexed, still mildly terrified look but Tanaka is smiling now, knowing and more than a little smug. He tells Hinata he better get going and Hinata nearly trips in his haste to leave. It’s lunch hour, no doubt he’s got more deliveries to make.

He says goodbye to Daichi with an almost timid wave and Daichi waves back, weak and absent-minded.

How can a single picture destabilize him so much? How can a person destabilize him so much?

And it was nothing, just a stupid, innocent picture of Suga being silly with the kids but it’s Suga and somehow, for some reason even nothing becomes something huge and monumental, capable of…perfect, now he’s smiling.

His mouth curves upward, for the pose, the expression, the pillow pom-poms, - for _Suga_ \- and all he can do is try to hide it behind a hand because he sure as hell can’t stop it.

“That was him, right?”

Tanaka.

Daichi nods. What reason would he have to deny it now?

“Him, who?” Nishinoya asks, then takes one good look first at Tanaka’s then at Daichi’s face and smirks. “Oooh, I see.”

Daichi shows them the picture. He almost feels vindicated when they too sigh.

“Man, he’s so pretty.”

Nishinoya pats his knee in a sudden bout of sympathy. “Don’t worry, Daichi-san. If I had a nanny like that I’d be in no better shape.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s good to hear. Because I think…I think I’m…”

Nishinoya and Tanaka stare at him, waiting. He clears his throat and raises his eyebrows in a way he hopes will be meaningful.

They get it at the same time and while Nishinoya’s jaw drops Tanaka smiles, like he’s been waiting for Daichi to admit it – _this_ , to admit this – the whole time. Long before their fight, ever since he first saw the –weird, inexplicable – effect Suga has on him, has always had on him.

“Holy shit…”

“I know.”

Holy shit. That’s one way to put it.

 

 

*

 

“Wow, this thing is _old_.”

Suga sucks in a breath and brings a hand to his chest, to shield his heart from blasphemy. “Excuse me, Sailor Moon is a _classic_. There’s a big difference.”

What is it with the Sawamura family not understanding this important concept?

The cats in bananas anime the kids watch every afternoon had just ended when Suga stumbled upon these Sailor Moon reruns browsing aimlessly through channels, and as soon as he recognized the episode – give or take two seconds – neither Ayame nor Kaede could convince him to give the remote back.

“Oh, hey that boy is pretty…”

But then again, Ayame didn’t take much time to get into it as well.

“Haruka? That’s…that’s a girl?!”

“I told you so, Aya!”

“Suga-san, is that true?”

“Eh…yeah, I guess.”

“What does that mean?”

“Ssshhh Aya, I wanna watch!”

It takes them Haruka Tenou’s face to get into it, and two episodes in a row to learn the opening song.

_“Haruka-san, you are very knowledgeable about kisses!”_

_“First kiss…we want to make the most of it, don’t we?”_

“First kiss…we want to make the most of it, don’t we?” Suga recites along with Michiru and bites back a smile when sparkles and roses appear in the background, along with a twinkling string of harp.

“Oh…” Ayame whispers beside him and furrows her brow, as though something isn’t quite adding up.

Kaede, on Suga’s other side, stays stubbornly quiet.

Suga waits. The episode ends in deafening silence, and when he realizes what comes next he makes to take the remote and change. Ayame stops him with a hand tugging at the sleeve of his shirt. “Don’t, I want to see what comes next.”

‘Next’ is the Lovers’ Contest episode. Couples, boys and girls face off to see which is the most devoted pair…and there Haruka is, recognizing Michiru’s hand among a dozen, without even a moment of hesitation. There they are, winning every contest until the very last, that asks them to deliver a heartfelt confession.

The silent hopes of 13 years old him, because surely if two girls fit so well together, then two boys could too…right?

He bites his lip and chances a look at Ayame, then one at Kaede. They are focused on the screen, still silent and hunched toward the screen.

Maybe he went too far. He hadn’t even fully realized what questions these episodes, these two could raise. He should have. Because now he’s not sure he can answer, if he’s allowed to answer those questions.

He likes to forget it sometimes – ok, all the time - but…he’s their nanny. Not a relative, not their…their parent. A nanny. And maybe, no, _surely_ he shouldn’t be the one to discuss such subjects with them.

The kids gasp in unison and amidst his daze Suga starts. On the screen the monster kidnaps Umino thinking him the possessor of a crystal.

“No, geek guy! Is he gonna be alright, Suga-san?”

The same question Daichi had asked him during their Lord of the Rings marathon.

This time Suga decides to answer a little differently. “Yes, don’t worry.”

And indeed the monster is destroyed and Umino is back safe in Naru’s loving arms.

“I knew it,” Kaede says, even though he couldn’t hide a relieved sigh just seconds before.

“No, you didn’t!”

They keep bickering for a while and Suga lets them. Doraemon starts and he hurries to change the channel again. He would do anything for these kids, step on burning coals, get in front of a speeding car, but watching Doraemon? Hell no.

“But I don’t get it, Suga-san,” Ayame asks all of a sudden, eyes fixed in Suga’s. He tenses. “Why did Haruka and Michiru drop off before that last challenge? They would have won!”

Oh.

Suga stands and collects the plates on the coffee table. He needs to do something, get his hands busy to calm the mess that is his head.

Why, indeed. Why drop off, exactly in that moment, right before that challenge.

“I guess they weren’t ready.”

“Ready for what? For the speech?”

He puts the plates back down and dries his hands on his jeans. They are clammy all of a sudden. “No, I mean, they weren’t ready to say those things. In public.”

_His_ face comes to his mind, and suddenly it’s hard, stringing the words together to form a sentence, getting them out at all.

“Declaring your love to somebody, it’s…it’s hard. Really hard. You have to do it when it feels right, you know? When…when you are ready, and you just can’t keep it in any longer, or…when you are sure the other person feels the same way you do.”

He’s blushing. God, he’s blushing. In front of the children of the man he’s thinking about.

“Maybe Haruka and Michiru weren’t ready to do that yet.”

_Haruka and Michiru…_

Ayame nods, seemingly oblivious to his show of nerves, the way he’s fidgeting with the plates. “Oh, that makes sense,” she says and stands to help him bring the glasses and dishes to the kitchen. Kaede follows them, empty-handed.

“Did you ever do that, Suga-san?”

“Do what?”

“Confess to someone, duh.”

He puts his rubber gloves on and starts washing the dishes, back to the kids, hoping his redness won’t spread to his neck and ears.  “Not really,” is all he says.

It’s true, pretty much. Confessions, hiding love letters in your crush’s locker, that’s something only really done when you’re in school and when _he_ was in school he was too busy freaking out over the fact that girls seemed to do nothing much for him. Sure, there was this very pretty girl in his class back at Karasuno that made him blush whenever he caught her looking at him but in his dreams, in his head there was only, ever space for boys.

And once he arrived to Tokyo the idea of taking a boy aside and telling him of all the times he’d fantasized about them holding hands and going on dates had long lost its appeal. Besides, when your roommate and closest friend is Oikawa Tooru boys come to you, not the other way around.

It’s getting them to stay where Suga has always failed.

“Oh…” Ayame seems disappointed by his answer, she was probably hoping for some epic – epically awkward – romantic tale to tease him about. “Really? Never?”

“What can I say, Ayame-chan? I’ve always been quite shy…”

With sex, not so much, but for when it comes to feelings…one of his exes had told him ‘’it’d be easier opening a lock without the right key than getting something even remotely personal out of you’’. Needless to say, that hadn’t lasted long.

None of them did.

“Does that mean you’re single now?”

“What is it with all these questions?”

“I’m just curious, Suga-san!”

Suga sighs and scrubs the honey and soy sauce off the rim of a bowl. “Yes, I’m single.”

It kind of stings, ok it really stings, having to say it.

It’s never bothered him this badly before.

“Didn’t you go on a date a couple of weeks ago?”

“Yeah, when mom came over…”

Suga freezes for a moment and he nearly drops the glass he’s washing, mind back to the night he and Daichi had spent together in the park. The best date he’s ever been to, and it hadn’t even been a real date. Not even close.

“Yes, that’s right! That night mom came to pick us up!”

And it dawns on him. They are talking about Satori. He’d told them he had a date, that’s why he had to pretty himself up and change into nicer clothes. Another date that wasn’t a date, although not nearly as brilliant.

To think he considers more successful that couple of hours spent with Daichi than a night of sex with Satori…

“Suga-san?”

Ayame’s voice makes him jump. “W-what?”

“The date, Suga-san. Didn’t you have a date that night?”

“Yes, yes I did, but-” uncomfortable coughing, nervous fidget, “it…it didn’t work out. I mean, it wasn’t really…a date. Me and this…person, we were just having fun. Nothing serious.”

Nothing serious. That is technically still going on, even though they haven’t seen each other since Suga stood Satori up to…again, to spend time with Daichi. Oh God, he’s awful.

“This person. Suga-san, was it a boy?”

And of course she noticed.

Suga tugs his rubber gloves off and faces her, he doesn’t want to admit this with his back to her, he doesn’t want her to think this is something he’s ashamed of. “Yes, the person I had a date with was a boy.”

Ayame’s shoulders drop but she doesn’t avert her eyes. “I see.”

Silence falls around them for a moment. Even the clock seems afraid to tick.

“Aya?” Kaede looks at her, almost reproachful, and then at Suga, as though he wants to apologize for his sister’s behavior. Suga smiles at him, _it’s_ _alright_.

It’s not him liking boys Ayame is disappointed over. He’s had to stomach _that_ look for years, - disapproval, indignation, disgust, - and it’s not the look Ayame’s wearing now. It’s something he should have addressed weeks, months ago. He just, he’d hoped it’d pass soon, by itself.

“Hey, no!” Ayame nearly yells and puts her hands in front of her. “I didn’t mean…it’s cool, Suga-san. I don’t care if you go on dates with boys, you’re still…you’re still my Suga-san!”

“It’s just…you don’t like girls? At all?”

_Oh, Ayame…_

He wishes he could lie. He wishes he could with all his heart, that way he wouldn’t have to see her eyes turn sad, her shoulders drop even more. But that would be wrong, that would be shitty and he’s…he’s her Suga-san, and he can’t do that to her. He can’t lie. He won’t.

“Girls are lovely, Ayame-chan. They are just…not for me.”

He walks to her and puts a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry…” he whispers in her hair, too low so that Kaede won’t hear.

Ayame’s hands tug on the sleeves of his shirt and she shakes her head against the crook of his neck. “It’s alright, as long as you don’t leave…”

“I won’t. Don’t even think about that.”

“Hey, why are you whispering? I want to hear!”

Kaede leans toward them and rests his hands on Suga’s shoulder not fall off the stool. Ayame tells him to go away, words muffled by the fabric of Suga’s shirt, but Kaede only moves in closer.

They start to argue, just like this, while Suga is forced perfectly still not to send them both on the floor.

It’s alright though, as long as they stay like this…

 

 

*

 

Daichi waves goodbye to Tanaka and Nishinoya and feels their eyes on his back all the way outside, till he’s rushing down the stairs that give to the busy street.

He’s glad he told them – ok, sort of told them – in a way it was a relief. It’s a relief, not having to hide behind ‘just a crush’, ‘it’ll pass’ or ‘ don’t make a big deal out of it’ because it is a big deal, he knows it, the same way he knows this won’t just pass. It’s not going to go away with time, if he avoids spending time alone with Suga.

He knows that now, and so do Tanaka and Nishinoya.

The lights of the house wink at him warmly when he reaches his neighborhood and he starts a light jog in the rain, umbrella moving around everywhere getting his shoulders and face all wet. The front door is already open wide by the time he’s gotten to the gate.

“Hey, you.”

It’s Suga, smiling at him with the warmest eyes. His hair is a mess as usual and the collar of his shirt is crooked, to bare the beautiful line of his collarbone and the line of moles he has on his neck.

“Hi…”

Daichi takes the steps two by two, they are only four, and suddenly they are standing face to face.

“How was your day?”

Stressful. Long.

“Good, it was good.”

Suga shakes his head and lets him inside. Helps him take off his jacket when the wet fabric sticks to the shirt underneath. “You look tired,” he whispers on his neck. “Are you sure it was ‘good’?”

“Alright, it was never-ending and very, very stressful. Happy?”

“Not at all, but I just ordered pizza so I’m pretty confident your day is going to get better soon.”

Suga almost sing-songs it and walks so close past him the curve of his hip bumps into Daichi’s.

_It already is better._

Daichi wants to take him by the hand and say so against his cheek but just as he’s moving toward him the sound of steps reaches his ears and he finds two kids clinging on him, with matching wide grins on their faces.

“Suga-san ordered pizza!” Ayame declares in his chest.

“Yeah, he told me.”

“That’s ok, right?” Suga’s voice again, coming from the kitchen. It only just occurred to him, that Daichi might have planned something else.

Daichi picks the kids up and makes his way to him. “Yeah, that’s cool. We haven’t had that in a while…”

It is cool, except it means he and Suga won’t have to cook tonight. Together.

How lame is that, that it’s become the best part of his days, cooking with Suga. Having dinner together with the kids, watching him steal their food – _his_ food – and tease him in every other sentence.

“Yes, it’s been centuries!”

“Really? That long?”

“No, not really, it’s…” Kaede blinks up at him, then turns to Suga. “What’s that word? When you say something is bigger than it is, like ‘I just climbed a hundred stairs’?”

“Hyperbole,” Suga says.

Daichi shakes his head at them both. “How do you know a word like that, Kaede?”

Kaede just shrugs. “Suga-san.”

That’s all the explanation he gives.

“Suga-san is turning Dede into such a nerd, dad!”

“Hey, there is nothing wrong with getting good grades!”

“Yeah, nothing wrong with that!”

“Don’t call your brother that, Ayame.”

“What about Suga-san?”

Daichi pretends to think about it. “Eh, Suga can take it…”

The man in question lets the cloth he’s drying his hands with fall on the counter in outrage. “HEY!”

“And it’s not like it’s not true.”

“Oh, so this is how it is. Alright.”

Suga turns his back to them and starts cutting vegetables in silence, with so much force the blade of the knife keeps hitting the chopping board with a dull, irritated sound. The line of his shoulders is relaxed though, it’s clear he’s only acting.

“Aaawww no Suga-san I was joking!” Ayame hurries to his side and hugs his waist. Suga leans down to whisper something in her ear and she giggles, throws a mischievous look Daichi’s way. “Ah, so you’re only mad at _him_!” she says, her voice a little too loud, a little too pleased.

“You better tell him you are sorry, dad…”

She walks past him with a smirk on her face and drags Kaede back to the living room to pick up the toys and books and notebooks they left all around the room.

“Are you really that mad?” Daichi asks when they are gone.

Not really a question but it gives him a good reason to inch closer to Suga. His words, whispered in Suga’s ear, a good excuse to feel the softness of his hair against his cheek.

Suga turns his face toward him, just enough to fix him with a stern look. It would be more convincing if his eyes weren’t already crinkling at the corners. “I am, _Sawamura_ - _san_. You offended me, deep in my unapologetically nerdy soul.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do that will make you forgive me?”

Suga doesn’t answer, instead he hands him a knife and an eggplant and makes space for him on the chopping board. It’s so narrow they need to stand glued to each other’s side. Daichi doesn’t mind at all.

“So how was your day?”

Suga shrugs, or at least tries to, considering his shoulder is smashed against Daichi’s. “Good. Quiet. Worked on my thesis. Found out the reason why I always seem to lose my pens, even though I _always_ carry half a dozen in my bag…”

“Let me guess: your cat has something to do with it?”

Suga passes him a zucchini, not before poking him in the cheek with it though. “Brilliant intuition, captain.”

“Apparently the little thief likes to stick her head inside my bag, take as many pens as she can carry and drop them in her cat bed.”

Daichi shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose to suppress a snort. That cat is as endearingly weird as her owner, or human companion, as Suga likes to call himself. “I see. But why?”

“Oh you see she likes to lie down on them and feel them roll against her back. She purrs, even, whenever she does it. That’s how I caught her, I heard her purring all the way down the hall.”

“Oh my God…”

“Yeah. I delivered quite the scolding. And I took the pens back, of course. I only left her the few that had dried out anyway and the one my ex got me for my birthday last year. Don’t even know why I still had that thing…”

 “Wait a second, you got _a_ _pen_ for your birthday? Was it, like, one of those fancy fountain pens-”

“No, are you kidding? I would have loved it if it were that. No, no it was this really sad, grey pen my _boyfriend_ ”- he spits the word – “got at one of those sad gadget stores, you know? Oh, and I forgot the best part: it was also a clock.”

The zucchini almost slips from Daichi’s fingers as he throws an alarmed look Suga’s way. This is terrible. “A _clock_?”

“Yeah, you see at the top it had this little digital clock so that I would always know the exact time during one of my _mad_ _writing_ _sessions_.”

“God, I hope you dumped the guy after that.”

Suga’s mouth twists, the corners of it turn strangely tight. “No, I got to play the part of the fool for another two whole months before I grew the guts to do it.”

Daichi steps closer to him and with the excuse of throwing the chopped vegetables in the pan he brushes their legs together. “Why the fool? Was he that big of a jerk?”

Again that smile that’s not really a smile. “I’d say. Asshole cheated on me for months. And wouldn’t admit to it till I actually caught him in the act.”

The meaning of what he just said clears in Daichi’s brain and his vision turns red for a moment.

“WHAT?”

Suga jumps and his knife makes a nasty dent in the chopping board. “Oh, shit!”

“Sorry…”

Suga shakes his head, as if to say ‘’my fault’’ and throws both knives in the sink before someone can get hurt. He cleans the counter with a cloth while Daichi stares, impossibly still. In the other room Ayame and Kaede are laughing at something on TV.

He cheated. Some asshole, some stupid fucking asshole cheated on Suga. On _Suga_.

How the fuck does something like this happen?

“He was the fool, Suga. Not you.”

It’s all he manages to say, in the mugged mess of thoughts twirling in his head. The only phrase to come to him that doesn’t have cusses and curses and more sailor speech in it.

“Didn’t feel like it at the time. Still doesn’t. I mean, I should have noticed…”

“No. _No_. It’s never…it wasn’t you. That, that was all him. Screw fool, he was a fucking moron.” It slips, but who the fuck cares. An asshole fucking cheated on Suga. Daichi’s fingers are white around the handle of the fork as he stirs the vegetables. “I mean, he was with you. With _you_ , and he blew it. Only a moron wouldn’t realize how lucky he got to…”

_To be with you._

“You…you deserve better, you know that, right?”

He chances a look at Suga and finds him staring back at him, with wide, luminous eyes.

Nobody in their right mind would throw away a chance like that. Like this.

Daichi would never…he would never…

He averts his eyes. He sighs, and it’s shaky like he feels. He gave himself away, completely. In the matter of a second he told Suga everything, without having to utter a single word.

Suga steps in closer, so close his chest is pressed flush against Daichi’s shoulder. So close Daichi can’t move, can’t even think of moving.

“I do. I know now.”

His breath caresses Daichi’s cheek and when Daichi turns to face him it mingles with his own.

So close, Suga’s lips look even softer, fuller.

He wonders if he could…

The doorbell rings, and it’s only that and the children’s excited whoops that force Daichi away, keep him from hoisting Suga up on the counter and kiss him till his lips are red and parted with a breath he cannot catch.

Daichi thanks the pizza delivery guy and pays him, all without even noticing, all while in a daze. Skinny as a rod, with freckles scattered all over his face and fresh out of high school, if not younger still, the kid tries to give him change but it’s taking so long Daichi tells him to just keep it.

“It’s your tip,” he says.

_Your tip for preventing me from doing something really, really inappropriate with my kids just a door away._

“Wow, t-thank you, sir!” the kid stutters out and almost trips on the steps in his enthusiasm.

“There!” Daichi lets the pizzas down gently on the island and tells the kids to see which is whose while he and Suga set the table.

“The kids insisted I order one for myself too…” Suga tells the knife he’s fixing by his seat, “I hope that’s alright. That I’m staying, I mean.”

He didn’t, the last couple of days. Not after the storm. Daichi had noticed, and he’d missed it. Him.

He walks to Suga with the pretense of putting a glass at Ayame’s seat and says, just as low, “Why are you asking questions you already know the answer of?”

_If it was for me you’d stay every day, for dinner, for breakfast, for the night_ , that’s what he would like to say.

He doesn’t know if Suga can read behind his words, if his message came across, all the way through, but Suga’s smiling again, crooked and a little shy and that’s enough for now. It has to be.

 

The pizza is delicious, but even better is the atmosphere at the table.

Ayame and Suga are arguing over toppings, more specifically on whether spicy sausage is better than spicy salami and “I can’t believe you would betray me like this, Ayame-chan?”. Kaede is watching them with a smile in his eyes and munching on his fries, tipping them from time to time in the sauce of Suga’s pizza.

“Can I have one?” Suga is asking now and Kaede hands him three, which he takes with his teeth making everybody laugh.

“What?” he says then and it’s barely understandable through his mouthful and it only causes the kids to laugh harder.

Daichi takes a sip of his coke, just so he can hide his smile behind the glass.

Even in his happiest days spent with Yurika he’d never found this much contentment. When they first met it was a whirlwind of extremes, of highs and lows so tall and deep he could make no sense of anything. Sex, fights, sex, dates in restaurants he couldn’t really afford just to impress her – and even though she gave no importance to that. It was a constant strive to be better, to appear better than he was.

Then Ayame came along, and with her the decision to get married, and with it the problems. The happiness he felt holding Ayame in his arms unparalleled, just like the misery at how quick his relationship with Yurika was falling apart.

But now…it’s like standing before a fireplace. He feels warm all over.

A hand falls on his under the table, slim fingers squeeze it with a gentleness that speaks of uncertainty.

“Is everything alright?” Suga says, a whisper almost covered by the kids’ voices. Daichi has to read it on his lips, what it is he wants to say.

“Of course.”

Everything is alright. More than alright.

Daichi turns his hand and now it’s his open palm touching Suga’s. It’s clammy, he knows, but Suga doesn’t seem to mind.

 

 

*

 

“And your mother is sure she doesn’t mind?”

Daichi sighs but under Suga’s glare he nods again. Suga splashes him with soapy water and he yelps, tries to shield himself with the plate he’s drying.

“Are you really, really sure?”

“Suga I swear if you ask me one more time I’ll drop _you_ in the water!”

Suga sticks out his tongue. “I wouldn’t fit.”

“We’ll see…”

At the menace clear in Daichi’s voice Suga takes a side-step away from him. He knows he’s being a pain about this, he’s asked the same questions in circle at least three times but he needs to be sure that him leaving on Friday is not going to be an inconvenience for anyone. That Daichi’s mother is happy to take care of the kids for one afternoon and that Daichi will be fine with him taking a day off.

“I’ll take the train back on Sunday night, so Sawamura-san won’t have to come back on Monday as well-”

“Suga, I know. You already told me. Several times.”

“I know, I know but-”

“No buts.” Daichi takes a glass from his hands and starts to dry it.

They have drifted close once again, so close their shoulders keep touching with every movement.

“I’m actually…happy that you are taking some days to yourself. Before my parents got a house here it was hard for me, seeing them only every couple of months. In fact, I’m surprised you are staying for just two days.”

Yeah, usually he would stay longer. Every year as soon as his exams are over he takes a week to visit and celebrate his birthday with his dad and his nana. But this year he’s got his thesis to work on, meetings with his advisor he couldn’t postpone…

“And I’ve been on the waiting list to get a book I need for my thesis and I can go pick it up only on my birthday because if I don’t get there fast enough the next in line might snatch it away so I can’t really move.”

“That’s insane.”

“Yeah, it’s a very rare book though, so it is what it is, and I need it now to finish this bloody thesis once and for all. But my dad promised me he’d come down for my birthday in any case, so it’s not all bad.”

Daichi nods but while it’s clear he’s listening there’s a somehow faraway look in his eyes. “Your birthday is the 13th of June right?”

“Yeah…”

And then he pales. “That’s like two weeks away!”

Suga jumps at the volume of his voice and the water falling from the sink bounces off the surface of the spoon he’s washing to spray them on their faces. “Oh, shoot, I’m sorry!”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

Daichi doesn’t seem to have noticed the droplets of water falling on the side of his cheek. “That your birthday is so close!”

“I didn’t think it was important!”

And then it clicks. “Oh Daichi, you don’t have to get me anything.”

“Are you kidding me right now? You’ve got to be.”

Daichi takes the spoon from him and starts drying it with unnecessary vigor. “Not get you anything, as if…” he mutters all the while, shaking his head at him as though he’s disappointed Suga would even think this. “I know when it is, I just hadn’t realized it was already June…”

Suga presses closer to him, till they are touching from arm to hip, and rests his forehead on Daichi’s shoulder. Just for a second, just for the time it takes him to regain some strength in his limbs.

It’s…sweet, that Daichi gives that much importance to his birthday. That he’s freaking out because he has so little time to prepare. Suga breathes in the fresh smell of Daichi’s cologne, that of his clothes – white musk, like the sheets he slept in – and rubs his cheek against the soft fabric of his shirt. Then he moves away.

Daichi’s neck has turned red, he’s fallen quiet. Suga pretends not to notice, like he chooses to ignore the heat he feels rising to his face. He passes Daichi another plate to dry.

As soon as he leaves he sends a text to Satori.

 

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

Even in the semi-darkness of the street Suga can feel the intensity of Satori’s gaze on him.

He opens the door to his apartment and gestures for him to come inside.

“Hey, so. Sorry I kind of dropped off of the face of the earth, I jus-”

He swallows down his words as Satori’s mouth comes down on his, forceful and pushy like it’s never been before.

It’s not a kiss, a meeting of lips doesn’t make a kiss and Satori doesn’t even take advantage of Suga’s jaw-slacked surprise to deepen it. It’s not a kiss, Satori is trying to make a point.

Suga slaps his chest when he finally breaks away, breathless and speechless and more than a little irritated. “What the hell was that?”

“You know, if you wanted this to stop you could have just  called and let me know.” Satori leans against the wall and fixes him with an annoyed look. “Would have saved me the trouble of coming all the way down here.”

“You live only 10 minutes away,” Suga feels the need to argue, even though that is so not the point nor what he should say right now.

“I’m sorry, alright?”

That’s more like it.

“I should have called you, I’ve just…been all over the place lately.”

“So I’m right, you’re ending this.”

Not a question, but Suga has to answer anyway. The guy came all the way here to hear it. “Yeah, I’m. Yes.”

“Your boy finally got his head out of his ass, uh?”

Satori’s tone is amused more than anything, not a trace of resentment to be heard, but Suga still flinches. He really had been obvious this entire time. Not just to Mrs. Devaux, but to a guy he barely knows as well. “No, I…we are not. Shut up.”

It’s too complicated. How would it sound, we are getting somewhere? We just had a talk and it’s pretty clear this is something we both want? Nah, Satori would just make fun of him. Tell him he’s a wuss, that Daichi is a wuss, and they both need to show some guts and say ‘screw it’ to all the people who would have something to object about. Say screw it and screw.

“Oh man, are you really sure about dumping me for a guy who’s gonna take months just to hold your hand?”

_Yes._

Daichi’s hand had felt perfect in his own, even under the table, half covered by the tablecloth.

“Ok, don’t answer that, just the cheesy smile on your face is giving me the creeps.”

Suga rolls his eyes at him, feigns annoyance to hide his embarrassment and walks into the living room. When Satori stands still by the entrance, for once he the one looking unsure, he gestures for him to follow and grabs the first movie he can find on the shelf by the TV.

“What do you say? You made it all the way here, might as well do something, no?”

Satori doesn’t answer, instead he sits on the sofa and props his feet on the coffee table. “I’m not watching The Phantom Menace, that movie sucked.”

Suga shows him Return of the Force. “That’s better.”

It is.


	18. Does my love ever reach you? part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suga goes to Miyagi.

Thursday night is a mess of packing, throwing away everything he’s packed and repacking once again. Lather, rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

Tooru helps him with the folding – if it were for Suga he’d just stuff everything in the suitcase and pray not to find it too wrinkled and messy after the train ride – and something in the way he’s caring for each shirt, folding them neatly again and again, tells Suga he’s trying - just as carefully - not to think about something.

_Or someone…_

When Suga asks him about it though, Tooru just shrugs and tells him to bring a souvenir.

“I’m going to Miyagi, Tooru. Not Bora-Bora.”

In the morning, he makes sure to hug him extra-tight.

“Call me if you need…”

“Thanks, Kou.”

Tooru’s smile is sincere, although small. Suga hopes he won’t hear from him at all this week-end. If he doesn’t it’s because nothing happened, and he doesn’t want what he thinks is going to happen to happen while he’s away.

“See you Monday, Taka.”

Aone nods and tells him a soft “be careful”. Suga stands on his tippy toes and presses a quick kiss on his cheek, then one on Onyx’s precious head.

“See you soon, baby.”

She mews at him and as he walks away she struggles in Taka’s hold. She’s not used to this, he’s always taken her with him in the past, on his trips to Miyagi, but for only a couple of days he didn’t see a reason to. It’s better to spare her the train ride, she never travelled well.

Still, Suga would be lying if he said he’s not going to miss her. Even for only a couple of days.

He waves one last time before he disappears behind the corner, then he’s gone.

 

It took him all night to pack but of course the thing he managed to forget is the one thing he needs right now.

The rain started on his way to the station, when he’d already gotten too far to make his way back home and grab his umbrella. It’s not hard nor cold, lucky for him it’s thin, almost unnoticeable drops falling straight on the asphalt, on the leaves…and on Suga’s cat beanie. Which his nana made for him.

_That’s_ the real problem.

It was her first attempt at crochet and Suga loves it and now it’s getting wet.

If only he had a newspaper or something to cover his head with…

He travels the streets running as fast as he can when he’s carrying a trolley that seems to get caught up in every bloody manhole cover existent in the city. After five minutes he’s already panting, his hip aches where the trolley keeps hitting him and he’s not really drenched but close to. Or at least his beanie is.

He stands for a moment under a monumental Sophora tortuosa tree to catch his breath and – mentally – curse this weather when suddenly the rain stops falling, but only above him. Only on him.

“I thought you watched the weather report every day…”

Suga’s heart skips a beat.

He looks up and there _he_ is. Daichi. Smiling down at him and holding a red umbrella above his head.

“What…um…”

He can’t seem to get a single word out. His brain is buzzing with thoughts – stupid thoughts, inappropriate thoughts, disgustingly cheesy thoughts that he’s sure will keep him up tonight – but he can’t voice a single one because Daichi just appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and when Suga is not prepared for it, Daichi’s beauty always kind of stuns him.

“What are you…?”

“I was going to the station. Hoping to, um, to catch you and…and say goodbye?”

They’d said goodbye last night, rushed words and an endless look because the kids were bent on walking him to the gate too and neither of them could say much more than “Goodbye, Suga” and “See you on Monday, Daichi.”

So it wasn’t just him, who had walked away with tingling skin and the need of a touch – simple, simple touch – that they couldn’t share.

“I see…”

They start walking and the drops of rain hit the umbrella, unexpectedly noisy. “That was nice, sweet of you…”

Daichi shrugs and makes to bring a hand to the back of his neck but the one that is not holding the umbrella is carrying the briefcase and in doing so the edges of it almost hit a businessman passing by in the face.

“Hey, watch out!”

“Sorry, sir!”

“Yeah, sorry…”

As soon as the man is out of sight they both burst out laughing, sudden and full of nerves.

“That habit of yours is starting to become dangerous…”

“It’s not a habit! I don’t do it on purpose!”

_I know, that’s why it’s so adorable._

Suga moves closer to him and blows his bangs away from his face. Right now, he doesn’t feel like hiding his smile away. “Shouldn’t you be at work by now?”

It must be past 9:30, at the very least.

Another shrug, a sheepish look thrown his way. “I asked for a two hours permit. I need to be there by ten, but until then I can, um, I can wait with you…for the train, I mean.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s no problem.”

They are walking slow. Suga doesn’t know who started it, if him and then Daichi followed, or the other way around, but people seem to speed past them like cars, he can’t even distinguish their shapes.

“We need to turn left now, right?”

“Uh-uh.”

The rain falls stronger, but except for the hand holding the trolley Suga doesn’t feel it.

“So Nishinoya started to stuff his face with oreos, and I swear they were at least 15 and in the 33 years that I’ve lived so far, I’ve never seen a more disgusting, disturbing sight in my life…”

He can’t even hear it now, hitting the window panes, the asphalt, the leaves.

“Even more disturbing than the vice-principal’s flying wig?”

Daichi tenses, his mouth turns into a straight, irritated line.

Ooops.

“They told you about that?”

“Um…”

Oh boy, he’ll have to make it up to Tanaka and Nishinoya. Big time.

“They did. They told you. I’m going to kill them, as soon as I see them, I swear-”

“Oh, Daichi, come on. It’s really not that bad and, I mean, it’s not like after the satanic duck I could have retained my first impression of you as a cool, distinguished man anyway…”

Daichi seems to want to argue but then, when he realizes it’s pointless, he sags on himself.

“Here, here,” Suga coos and reaches out to pat his shoulder, “I like you better this way, you know?”

Dorky, awkward Daichi is much funnier to be around than cool, distinguished businessman Daichi…and much easier to tease.

Daichi lights up before his eyes. Then, when he realizes Suga is looking right at him, and not at the road ahead, he tries to school his expression in a mildly disinterested scowl. It’s too late though, far too late. “Really?”

“Oh, yes. Much bett- hey, why is your shoulder all wet?”

Suga moves his hand away from Daichi’s shoulder and looks at the drops falling down the back of it. “Oh you didn’t-”

But of course he did. The entire time Daichi has been holding the umbrella askew so that it would cover Suga…leaving his own right side completely exposed to the rain.

“Oh, Daichi!”

If only he weren’t confined under this stupid umbrella and dragging this even stupider trolley Suga would march in front of this man, plant his hands on his hips and fix him with his best stern look. “You impossibly charming idiot. Your jacket is so much more expensive than mine!”

“S-shut up, this is _my_ umbrella and I can hold it whatever way I want!”

There’s a fierce blush covering Daichi’s face, and it’s slowly making its way up to his ears as well.

Suga can feel his own cheeks heat up in sympathy.

This man…

This stupidly wonderful man. He’s a freaking Prince Charming, only with more personality and much, much better looks.

A kiss in the rain has never sounded more appealing to Suga before.

If only…

If only he had the time. If only he didn’t have a train to catch. If only…

Without a word he takes Daichi by the arm and tugs until their sides are pressed flush against each other. His fingers curl around the curve of Daichi’s – _holy shit, magnificent_ – bicep and just like the other day in the kitchen he’s hit by how good Daichi smells.

Clean and fresh.

Suga is dizzy with it.

“T-there. We are going to walk like this now, so hold your umbrella straight or I swear to God.”

Daichi nods and from the corner of his eye Suga sees the nervous bob of his throat.

“Maybe this was my plan all along…” he attempts to joke and maybe it’s the nerves, or the fluttering in his stomach, so delicate it’s almost tickling, but Suga laughs.

And laughs and laughs.

“Shut up, it was not!”

He holds on to Daichi not to slip in a puddle on the ground and just like that Daichi is laughing too.

They are still dabbing at the tears gathered at the corners of their eyes when they finally get to the station.

Ten minutes till his train is scheduled to arrive but the speaker is already announcing it.

Today of all days it had to come early…

Today of all days.

Daichi walks with him to the platform and they are still so close, still touching, even though the umbrella is now dangling from Daichi’s hand, limp along his side. They are covered by the platform roof, the rain can’t reach them, but neither of them makes to move apart.

The shape of _it_ can already be seen at the end of the railway, coming closer and closer with each blink.

“I hope you have fun,” Daichi mutters, it’s honest as it is awkward.

It’s only three days.

On Monday they’ll see each other again. It’s only three days.

“You too, I mean, with the kids…” The words fall all over each other in their haste to get out of his mouth and Suga pokes out his tongue when Daichi chuckles at him. “Try not to get caught up in Ayame’s schemes. But if you do, then take pictures at least.”

“Like the one Ayame sent me? With you posing as a cheerleader?”

_Oh_

_My._

_God._

“She sent you that?!”

The train stops with a squeak. People get off it, crowd the platform, chatter away.

Daichi smiles. “She did. And I saved it, of course.”

“Of course,” Suga sighs. “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”

“Nope. But if it makes you feel better you…you didn’t look bad.”

Daichi doesn’t quite meet his eyes as he says it. He liked it. He liked the picture.

Suga bites his lip to hide the smug edges of his grin. “Well, thanks.”

_‘The passengers of train number 56443 are requested to board.’_

“Oh it’s…that’s me.”

The crowd has thinned all of a sudden. Only a few late-comers still linger.

Suga shifts on the balls of his feet, then moves to Daichi in a quick step. He places a hand on his shoulder – still wet – and presses a kiss on his cheek. The same cheek he’d kissed the other night, in the storm. Only now they are in broad daylight, there are people all around them, chatting and waiting and laughing.

He lingers, moves away, then kisses him again, by the corner of his mouth.

“See you Monday.”

“Yeah. See you.”

He’s already moved away when Daichi takes his hand in his. His suitcase is on the ground.

Suga looks back at him and waits.

“Call me if…if you want.”

“I will.”

Daichi’s thumb draws a line on the back of his hand. As they let go, it caresses his fingers.

“Have a safe trip.”

Suga hops on the train just as the doors close on Daichi’s face.

They smile at each other through the glass. The train starts moving.

 

 

*

 

Daichi has to run to make it to work on time.

The rain falls on him and he can’t find it in himself to care one bit. The umbrella, useless in his rush, keeps getting caught in the lowest branches of the trees or in other people’s umbrellas. He closes it in a curt movement then quickens his pace, side-stepping over puddles and people alike, throwing ‘excuse me’s everywhere.

When he gets to the office he’s panting and wet, but not drenched, and there is a strange lightness in his limbs that speaks of something absurd like elation.

Elation. The way he and Suga had said goodbye. How smooth the back of Suga’s hand is, how soft his lips.

Elation, knowing they are on the same page, reading the same things in the way they touch. Waiting to get to the moment where it’ll all make sense.

Except it already makes sense. Well, it does and it doesn’t.

It makes sense that Daichi is smiling, but does it really have to be so wide?

“Morning, Daichi-san.”

He nods, salutes Nishinoya standing close to the entrance, then Tanaka, intent on checking something on his work phone. They wave at him and share a knowing smirk. They have done nothing but since the other day.

Daichi would probably be irritated by that if he weren’t feeling so euphoric.

“Hello, Ennoshita,” he modulates his voice once he’s on his floor, a controlled baritone, but Ennoshita still stares at him with poorly-repressed amusement.

He’s become the joke of the building.

“Moniwa-san is waiting inside, Sawamura-san. He just arrived, so I thought it’d be easier to just let him in.”

Daichi doesn’t care about that either.

“That’s fine. Did you read his case?”

“Yes, last night.”

Daichi nods and ushers him inside his office.

Moniwa-san is waiting by the book shelf, fingers trailing the heavy covers of his legal dictionary. He jumps when he hears the door fall open. “Oh, s-sorry. I was just admiring the quality of the golden trims…”

That’s right, the man is a librarian or something to that end.

“It’s no problem, Moniwa-san. Please take a seat.”

Moniwa-san does, with unnecessary promptness. Poor man is still a mess of nerves, but Daichi is pleased to see his grip is steadier today.

“I apologize for my lateness, and the condition of my suit.”

“It’s no problem, really, Sawamura-san.”

Indeed Moniwa-san seems to be only noticing now the way Daichi’s suit is sticking to him. “I came to discuss the rights to my bookstore. See, I found these papers-” he takes several folders out of his bag, and half of them fall to the ground, “shoot, sorry.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Let me help.”

“Thank you. Yes, as I was saying I found all the papers you asked me for and now I’m not a lawyer of course but, um, with all due respect to my wife she has no fricking claim to my store!”

His voice turns harsh in the end and he’s the first to look surprised by the way it echoes in the closed space of the office. He flinches, but attempts a smile when all Daichi does is laugh.

“It’s good to see you so fired-up, Moniwa-san.”

It is. When Daichi had first met the guy he’d been sure that that harpy of his wife would rip him to shreds and leave him in just his underwear by the end of this divorce but clearly, Moniwa-san has more depth than he’d let on.

“That shop is my life, Sawamura-san. I studied for years languages I didn’t even really care for just so I could take over my grandfather’s activity to the best of my abilities.”

The man seems to grow ten inches the more he talks about his store. The line of his shoulders straightens. “Did you know that some of the most prestigious universities in Tokyo look to us to lend to their libraries books that otherwise they couldn’t find anywhere else in the country?”

“Wow, that’s impressive.”

“It is! Rare epistolary, early commentaries to masterpieces dating the Enlightenment. Our collection of first editions is the envy of many academics, especially that of French poets!”

Moniwa-san keeps talking but only one thing registers in Daichi’s brain.

He gestures for the man to back up for a second with wave of hand and only when the man has finally fallen quiet he asks “French poets, you said?”

 

 

*

 

Suga hates taking the train.

In fact, Suga hates taking every mean of transport, full stop. Oh, he loves to travel, don’t get him wrong, the few times he was able to afford it, bad weather or good weather, he always found the way to have a good time and bring back with him valuable experiences and unforgettable moments.

Immersions, climbing, getting lost in museums or in the middle of the woods, it’s an adventure no matter what or where and Suga loves it. It’s getting there that’s the real problem.

“The journey is the real destination.”

Yeah, sure Jan.

If his ‘’journey’’ were simply sitting by the window and getting to think back to the calluses on Daichi’s hand, Suga could even bring himself to agree. If he were allowed to do that, three hours would fly by, and still they’d be well-spent because the way Daichi had touched him then…

An elbow fits itself in the space between his ribs.

Except he’s _not_ allowed to because the woman sitting next to him keeps fidgeting and hitting him and pushing him into the window, and every time she does it’s like Suga has been startled awake. His mind tries to go back to the way Daichi had smiled at him just before the doors closed but it’s all useless. Other thoughts fight for space, stomping all over Daichi’s face, and sit heavy on the pit of his stomach along with the dread they bring.

He’s so looking forward to seeing his father again, he’s missed him so much these past few months. But he made a promise to himself, one that he has no intention of breaking. One he’s still not sure he can keep.

Tonight, tomorrow, the day after, he’ll ask about his mother.

It’s set. He will.

But will he be able to handle it? Asking? Getting answers?

Hell if he knows.

 

“Koushi…”

His father is waiting on the platform, far away from the crowd. Fixed in the background he doesn’t wave, he only smiles, a hand up to shield his eyes from the sun.

Suga walks to him in quick steps.

“Hey, dad.”

They hug, brief and awkward. Full of warmth. His father strokes his hair, still like when Suga was a kid, still even though now they are nearly the same height and it can’t really be that comfortable anymore.

“It’s good to have you back, kid.”

Tonight, tomorrow, or maybe on Sunday. He’s sure he will ask. But for now he just hugs his father back and grins at the sight of home.

 

Nothing has changed in the months he’s been away, nothing seems to ever really change here.

Shibasa-san, the owner of the ramen shop down the hill, greets him the same way she always has, with a brief smile, a double take and another smile, a little wider, as if she wasn’t really sure who she’d said hello to the first time.

Kobayashi-san, owner of the grocery store just two streets away from their house, waves around the picture of his niece – he picks a different niece each time – and tells him what a great catch she is – they all are.

“It’s really time you settle down, Koushi. Don’t tell me you want to leave this poor man without grandchildren!”

Suga laughs and reassures him that no, he doesn’t want to do that.

And he doesn’t, children are something he’s always wanted. A pair of familiar black eyes fill his mind, then the wide beam of a smile, a missing tooth, freckles. He shakes his head and hoists his bag on his shoulder.

“Suga is too busy with school to think about children yet!” his father is saying, with the unusual fervor he only ever directs to Kobayashi-san. They grew up together, used to live next to each other when they were kids. Best men at each other’s wedding, Kobayashi-san was the first person to know about…about Suga’s mother leaving. And the only one to try and shut all rumors up.

“Yeah, I still don’t get how _you_ raised such a little genius!”

“Got me, Kenta.”

Kobayashi-san claps Suga on the back, hard – Suga is so used to it he doesn’t even flinch – and gives him one of his trademark, full-face rogue grins. “You are the pride of the town, kiddo. I can’t wait to see what you’re gonna do once you are out in the world!”

“Thank you, Kobayashi-san.” Suga fidgets with his trolley to hide just how much those words touched him.

“We better get going now, Koushi’s had a long day…”

His father pats Kobayashi-san on the shoulder and tells him to give his love to the wife – “I will but not too much, eh, Tsuneo?” -  then helps Suga with the trolley.

Up the steps of cobblestone their home is finally visible and Suga feels another smile grow on his face.

This, most of all, has not changed.

The same faint yellow walls, the dark, almost black wooden window panes. The sun appears behind the clouds and Suga can see from meters away the carvings on their front door, stems of shion and vines, his father’s work.

_I won’t forget you._

Completed exactly a year after she left.

Of their own accord Suga’s eyes search for the blood red stain by his window.

“Those flowers grew so tall they are basically in your room, Koushi,” his father tells him, of course he noticed just where his gaze had fallen.

“It’s alright, I don’t mind.”

He doesn’t. He’s always loved those flowers, even when he hated them.

_“Cursed, that house is cursed, I’m telling you!”_

They get inside and they are both panting.

(“I thought you said you’d started jogging?”

“No, I said I went once. That’s different.”)

They leave Suga’s bags in his room – the pictures, the mess of books on his desk, the view of Montmartre watercolor, everything has stayed the same – and under the soft lights of the house his father places both hands on Suga’s shoulders and looks.

He stops on the dark circles under Suga’s eyes and frowns. The line of his cheekbones, sharper than how he remembers it. His baggy clothes, that used to fit him well.

He sighs but all he says is “You need to go get your hair cut, Koushi.”

“It’s good to see you too, dad.”

The hands on his shoulders move to tug at his bangs, that straighten then curl back to stick to his lips. “Yes, it’s gotten way too long.”

There is a smile in his father’s eyes that’s only for him.

That too, hasn’t changed.

 

 

*

 

“Yes, yes, I understand completely, Kasumi-san, but until I see the papers for myself there is nothing much I can tell you. Come by my office on Mond- yes, yes…”

Daichi covers the handset with a palm and huffs. This woman is, and has always been, such a thorn in his side. In everyone’s side, really, since she’s divorced so many times it’s entirely too probable every single lawyer of this firm has had to deal with her before.

“I understand, I will…yes, I will set an appointment for Monday- no. No, Kasumi-san, I do not work on week-ends, I have children I’m going to spend the week-end with them. Yes, they are adorable, and I will see you on Monday.”

“Oh dear Lord, why?”

Ennoshita snorts. The bastard, as soon as he’d realized who it was on the phone immediately turned the call to Daichi’s office phone. Without telling him who the caller was, of course.

‘’Just a client’’.

_Just a client, my ass._

“You spend too much time with the idiots downstairs,” he tells Ennoshita before locking himself in his office again, “that’s not good.”

He closes the door with force, just to convey how irritated he is.

He lets himself fall back on his chair and only when it has stopped squeaking he sighs. He can almost see it, rising like a cloud toward the ceiling, like it would in the mid of winter. It’s not winter now and it sure is not cold but…ugh, it’s so strange.

It’s Friday, in a couple of hours he’ll be home…and he’ll find his mother waiting for him there. Cooking, probably, not wearing an apron because she’s one of those people food never seems to fall on. Stains are afraid of her, they don’t dare come near, or something.

She’ll kiss his cheek and won’t let him touch anything because when she cooks she wants no one around. She’ll ask him about his day and it’ll be nice, the food, once done, will be delicious and she’ll force them all to take another portion of everything, which they will.

No teasing banters while chopping vegetables. No smiles from the other side of the room, that feel almost as thrilling as it would a kiss shared in a poorly-lit alley. No ‘Kiss the cook’ apron and gorgeous hips moving sinuously to the rhythm of a song that’s not playing.

It’s Friday, in a couple of hours he’ll be home and there’ll be no Suga waiting for him.

He looks down at the business card Moniwa-san left for him. There’s a phone number and the address of his bookstore.

“Come by after closing hour, that way we’ll have more time to look around and find something you might be interested in.”

“Oh, it’s not for me…”

In front of Ennoshita he hadn’t dared say anything. But he has the address already memorized.

His phone beeps and his heart jumps. It’s just his mom asking if chicken is ok for dinner. He types a quick ‘yes’ and scrolls down the numbers of his column.

He stops on one name, but doesn’t press ‘call’.

 

 

*

 

“Are you really sure you want to bring this drawer to the market?”

His father stops dusting a carved hand mirror and moves by his side to stare at the – downright stunning, no Suga is not biased  - cherry wood drawer with stylized flower engravings that occupies half the wall in the studio.

“Why? You don’t like it?”

“Oh no, I think it’s incredible. It’s just…I care about my back and I would really hate for it to snap in halves under the weight of this behemoth.”

His father rolls his eyes at him and starts fussing over a ring box instead. “All that studying has made you go soft, Koushi.”

“No, all that studying has made me realize what I can and cannot lift thanks to the most basic laws of physics and logic. That thing is twice my size!”

“It’s lighter than it looks. And I called a guy to help us carry everything to the truck so don’t worry your ruffled head over it.”

“It’s ‘pretty’ head.”

“No, from where I’m standing it just looks ruffled.”

Suga hurries to the nearest mirror and begins to comb his hair with his fingers. It must have gotten messy on the way to the shop, the wind has started to rise a bit in the past few hours but thankfully there are still no clouds in sight.

Still it was enough to turn his hair into a bird nest. “Do you think we should bring some waterproof covers with us? Just in case?”

“The market is in an old, abandoned fabric so it’s a closed space but it’s not like the covers take up much space…”

“So yeah?”

“Yeah, grab a few. You never know, so close to raining season.”

Suga nods and tugs at a lock of his hair that has tied itself in a perfect knot. His eyes begin to water. With a defeated sigh he lets his arm fall back along his side and concentrates back on the pieces that need to be brought upstairs.

“It’s raining already in Tokyo, isn’t it?” his father asks behind a pile of chairs.

Apparently they are still on the weather.

“Yep, we haven’t seen the sun in days.”

“Sounds bad.”

No, not so much.

In fact, not at all.

He’s just about to answer when a voice coming from upstairs calls his father’s name.

“Tsuneo-san?”

“Down here, Junpei-kun.”

Suga barely has the time to straighten back and stamp his most polite smile on his face that a man, around his age or maybe a little older, appears with an almost sheepish smile on his face. Tall and wide like a wardrobe, with tribal tattoos on both arms.

_Thank_ _God_ , Suga thinks to himself, trying not to gape. _This man can probably carry that chest one-handed._

His father jumps over the chairs to shake the guy’s hand. “Just in time, kid. We need help with a couple of pieces…”

“More than a couple,” Suga interjects.

His father laughs. “Yeah, more than a couple.”

He gestures for Suga to come closer. “This is my son, Koushi. Koushi, Junpei-kun is Shibasa-san’s nephew…”

Of course he is, everybody is related to everybody in this town.

Suga reaches out to shake the man’s hand and winces when his own is squeezed in a deathly grip. “I-it’s nice meeting you,” he manages to get out between clenched teeth.

‘Junpei-kun’ grins at him, maybe a little too wide. “Likewise.”

He takes in the picture Suga makes, lingering a little too long on his face, on his hair, on his hips. A muscle in his jaw twitches.

Suga pretends not to notice, after years he’s gotten pretty damn good at it, and takes the wall mirror in his arms. “I’ll bring this upstairs, dad.”

“Yeah, make sure to fix it well inside the truck. If it breaks I can’t sell it.”

“I know, I know.”

He takes the mirror in his arms and lifts it, careful as he can be.

He’s already halfway up the stairs when Junpei-kun speaks again, in tones not cautious enough.  “That your son, Tsuneo-san?” Disbelief.

“He doesn’t look much like you…”

Confusion, the slightest hint of disapproval.

It’s a code, you see. It stands for: looks too gay.

As he said, growing up in the countryside Suga has heard it all. To his face, behind his back. He’s used to it, he recognizes the signs, he recognizes the meaning behind the words.

He’s used to it, but he still doesn’t know how to act. How to react.

So he changes his grip on the mirror and climbs another step, without stopping to hear the answer. Knowing his father, he probably didn’t bother to give one.

 

In the truck it’s just the two of them again. Thankfully.

“Junpei will follow us on his car and help carry the furniture to our stand.”

_Lucky me._

Suga nods and rests his forehead on the cold on the window. The hands in his lap are tense in the effort not to curl into fists.

“It’s only for an hour. Top.”

His father noticed. Of course he did. Suga started hearing those voices only when he was well in his teens, his father probably had to suffer them since Suga was a kid, too frail-looking for his own good and always chasing butterflies. Going on adventures and coming back with flowers instead of bugs.

“It’s ok, dad.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know…”

“I know, it’s ok. I promise.”

It isn’t, but it’s not his father’s fault. It never was.

His father glances at him, just a second before his eyes are on the road again. “You’re a good kid, Koushi.”

_And that’s all that matters._

He doesn’t say it, but it’s there.

Suga smiles at the clouds gathering by the mountains. “Thanks, dad.”

 

 

*

 

“Thank you for the food, mom.”

“Yes, thank you for the food, nana!” Ayame exclaims and Kaede joins her mid-sentence.

Daichi nods at them, ‘yes, you can stand up’, and they hurry to the TV to catch this new anime they are both obsessed with.

They’ve been quieter than usual today, fought a little more often. Suga’s absence hangs heavy between them. The house too feels gloomier without the echo of his laughter bouncing on the walls.

Daichi stands up as well and starts to collect the dishes, a sigh stuck in his throat. “Really, mom, thanks. It was all delicious.”

“Of course it was, I made it.”

Normally he would roll his eyes at her, that’s what he always does, but today he only nods and makes his way to the kitchen to start washing dishes.

His mother follows him, doesn’t offer to help but stops by the island and watches him in silence. Folds one of his sleeves when it falls down his wrist and gets wet with soapy water.

It’s clear she wants to say something. His mom _always_ wants to say something, only she’s not always sure whether or not she should. Daichi throws her a quick look and sees she’s biting the inside of her cheek.

“What is it, ma?”

She shrugs, turns her gaze in the other room, where the kids are hidden by the back of the couch. “I think they miss him. Suga-kun, I mean.”

Bingo.

Daichi makes a noncommittal noise and keeps washing.

“Were they good?”

“Yes, yes, they are always good, don’t you worry about that.”

Always good might be pushing. While they haven’t done it since he hired Suga they are still the kids who made more than one nanny cry and run away with spirited eyes.

“I guess that’s to be expected. They see him every day, in a way Suga-kun has become part of the family…”

Her voice takes a weird tone, suggestive almost, and instinctively Daichi tenses.

“And he really seems like such a lovely boy. I know I only met him once,” she hurries to say before Daichi has a chance to interject, “ok? I know, but the way he acted around both of them, and the way they acted around him…especially Kaede! He was dancing with him, he was singing, he was cheering…”

“I’ve never seen Kaede act that way around a stranger before. Well, obviously Suga-kun is not a stranger but you know what I mean. Even around his cousins Kaede is not that carefree!”

Daichi stares at the bubbles gathering on his hands.

“Yeah, Suga…Suga has done a great job.”

A great job.

That’s what it is. His job. Except that’s not it.

Carrying Kaede up to his room to sleep, kissing Ayame’s temple when she was already asleep. The way he’d leaned on the wall, on him, after. The look he’d worn in that moment, it wasn’t that of a man who’s only just realized how rewarding his ‘’job’’ is.

Daichi scrubs some sauce stains from a bowl and scrubs his thumb as well. His skin turns pink, then red.

Nothing Suga has done so far is what he was required to do.

“He sure has.”

Daichi passes a plate under the cold water and stares at the bubbles running down its surface.

His mother steps closer to him and with the excuse of smoothing the wrinkles of his shirt she rubs his back, his shoulders. “I’m glad you have him to help you out,” she says, and again she’s studying him, every emotion that dares show on his face.

“So am I,” he admits, and he knows how his voice sounds, too clipped, too nervous.

Of all the things Daichi had included in that advertisement, the ability to leave him breathless with a simple look hadn’t been one of them.

And yet that’s what Suga seems to do best.

“For a while I was worried. I could see how you were struggling, Dai…” his mother’s voice shakes but doesn’t break, her hand on his back doesn’t waver. “I considered moving in with you for a while.”

Daichi stops to chance a look at her.

He hadn’t known that.

“Mom, it’s really not…”

_Necessary._

“I know it’s not now,” she waves him off, her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

Maybe it’s better he didn’t finish that sentence. There is no right way to tell a mother her presence is not needed, it’s not something his mom ever has to hear.

“I’m just saying,” she continues and this time it’s softer, “well…”

“The kids look much happier now.”

She squeezes his arm. Her eyes never leave him.

_The kids…_

“Yeah, I guess.”

Silence falls between them and when it stretches on too long his mother presses a kiss on his cheek and steps out of the kitchen, leaving him alone in his quiet.

 

 

*

 

“And you said this is walnut, right?”

“No, ma’am, this is chestnut. The plain mirror with golden supports is walnut.”

Suga passes a hand on the smooth contours of the hand mirror he’s showing and points at the difference in coloring. “Walnut is richer, you see. It’s warmer and much easier to carve, that’s why the works in this wood are more elaborate.”

“Oh, I see. But I’m not sure if it fits with the rest of the furniture in my living room…”

In the end, the woman decides that it does. Or maybe that she simply doesn’t care – “After all it’s a hand mirror,” -  and to thank Suga for ‘’taking so much time’’ with her, she buys the walnut one as well, for her daughter. Suga wraps them for her with a smile and gives her a couple of his father’s business cards.

“Please spread word of our whereabouts to your friends as well. And consider us, in case you ever need a piece restored.”

He gestures for the woman to lean in closer. “My father is one of the best in the business,” he whispers, almost in her ear, and throws a quick, meaningful look to the rival furniture stand in front of them.

The woman laughs and promises to pass by their store soon, then leaves without throwing a single glance at any other stand around.

“That was a good sell, kid.”

His father appears out of nowhere to squeeze his shoulder, followed by a young couple looking to furnish their new and still ‘’pretty much empty’’ apartment.

Suga watches him talk to these clients, with the charisma and enthusiasm he only ever shows when talking about his job – and about his son, any other person who knows him would say – and can’t help a grin.

In the chaos of the market they are both sweaty and bone-tired but it’s a good kind of tired. In the hours they’ve been here his father has managed to sell two chests, a drawer and a lovely vanity table, and Suga more hand mirrors and jewel boxes than he cares to count.

There isn’t going to be as big a crowd for long, the sells they’ll be able to make in the next couple of days will probably amount to the 70% of the total, but it’s always good to start so well. It’s always good to see his father smile like that.

“Sugawara?”

A voice interrupts his reveries and Suga turns with an apology already on his lips.

“So it really is you.”

The words die out in his throat as he finds himself face to face with Ukai-san, looking handsome as ever, if only a little tired, and holding an adorable baby girl in his arms.

“I thought I’d seen you earlier, that hair of yours is impossible not to recognize, but you were surrounded by a crowd of people so I thought I’d stop by later. How are you doing?”

Suga gapes at him and only manages to stutter a ‘fine, you?’ before another embarrassing quiet fills his brain.

Ukai-san has changed. He doesn’t dye his hair anymore, now it falls on his forehead in a startling black - Suga had never known it was so dark. Gone is the white headband, but the earring is still in place, a simple circlet of silver catching the light. But it’s not just that, he looks…calmer, more settled. As if he’s finally grown into himself, and out of that restless energy he always seemed to give off, even in his calmest of moments.

He looks great.

“You look great, Ukai-san.”

He says it and it’s as embarrassing as it sounds because that’s not something you tell your former coach and high school crush. But Suga likes to think he’s grown as well, so when the words come out he pairs them up with a smile.

Ukai-san laughs, and that too is unexpected. “You too, Sugawara. Became quite the looker.”

The baby in Ukai-san’s arms stirs and fixes Suga with contemplative look. Suga smiles, wider, when he notices she has Ukai-san’s eyes.

“And who’s this?”

At his voice the baby giggles and reaches out to him. With the stand between them all Suga can do is raise his arm toward her and feel the unexpected firmness of her grip on his fingers.

“This is Aoi, my daughter.”

They look so much like each other Ukai-san could have easily not stressed it, but it’s so obvious the pride he takes into calling her that. His daughter. Suga feels a pang in his chest.

Freckles and black eyes fill his mind again and like before he forces them away.

“So, I’ve heard you are doing well at Meiji,” Ukai-san says and awkwardly tries to walk closer so Suga won’t have to stretch his arm so much.

Aoi, for her part, seems to have no intention of letting him go. In fact she has started to swing both their arms up and down and is giggling in the most adorable of ways.

“Yeah, yes, I’m a couple of months away from completing my master.”

“That’s great. I gotta say I’m not surprised, you always had a good head on your shoulders.”

“Thanks, Ukai-san.”

A brief silence follows but it’s not uncomfortable. Ukai-san is studying him, shrewd eyes following Suga’s every move.

“Last time I met him your father said you don’t play anymore.”

There it is.

Aoi squirms in her father’s arms and lets Suga go, only to wave her arms around in his direction, a clear order to be picked up. Ukai-san only hesitates a moment before giving her to Suga.

“Keep a hand on her back,” he tries to tell him but Aoi is already settled in Suga’s arms, her cheek resting on his shoulder and fingers clenching the fabric of his shirt. “Well, looks like you don’t need help with that.”

Suga shrugs. He could tell him about how he’s babysat since he was in high school, he could mention Daichi and ‘’oh, what a small world, to think that I’ve fallen in love with your former teammate and captain and I’m babysitting his children for a living, isn’t that just so strange?’’ but Ukai-san is still staring at him, the look he gets when he wants some answers, a look Suga knows too well.

“No, I’m not…I don’t play anymore. School, you know? And my job, it…it keeps me very busy…”

“I thought you’d picked Meiji for its volleyball history.”

Not a question. Ukai-san’s arms come up to cross over his chest.

“I did but…” Suga fixes his grip on Aoi and doesn’t even flinch when she starts tugging at his hair. He’s too busy trying to control the shame he feels. “But Meiji didn’t pick me.”

Comprehension dawns on Ukai-san’s face and Suga feels his cheeks heat up with mortification. There is something so…unbelievably sad about this, about telling the man who insisted on believing in you that, in the end, you could do nothing else but quit.

It was Ukai-san the one who kept giving him chances to play, even though the gap between Suga and the other players on court – _Kageyama, Kageyama, Kageyama_ \- was almost laughable in its vastness.

Ukai-san had never kept him on the bench for too long…and Suga went and rejected even the stands.

He looks down, to the objects on the counter. A hand mirror catches his reflection and shows him back his face. He looks up again to avoid it.

“That’s a real pity,” Ukai-san is telling him, and he looks like he feels it with every fiber of his being, that “Karasuno would have _never_ gotten that far without your spirit.”

“Thanks, but I don’t think-”

“I do, in fact I know it. Sugawara, listen-”

“There you are!”

Another voice joins them and Suga starts at the gorgeous woman appearing by Ukai-san’s side. Blond, irregular bob-cut. A dragon earring covering almost half of her ear, and a smile that is at once cheeky and loving.

“You were gone for, like, half an hour.”

“Couldn’t have been longer than ten minutes, Sae.”

“Then it was at least twenty.”

Without hearing Ukai-san’s answer the woman turns around and takes Suga’s hand in hers to shake. “I’m Tanaka Saeko, it’s nice to meet you…?”

“S-Sugawara Koushi.”

Wow, this woman’s hot.

Suga attempts a smile at her, then he freezes. “Wait, _Tanaka_?”

Tanaka Saeko, - yes, related to _the_ Tanaka Ryuunnosuke - is just as cool as her brother is lame, she has Ukai-san absolutely, 100% wrapped around her pinky and it’s hilarious, seeing the way they interact. How Saeko-neesan, the way she asked Suga to call her, always seems to wear him down till he admits she’s right and the way she teases him, so much so Ukai-san turns crimson every time.

They talk on and off for a good half hour, sadly and constantly interrupted by clients interested in seeing his father’s work, and they only leave because Aoi has started to doze off, still wrapped up in Suga’s arms.

“It was nice meeting you, Suga-chan,” Saeko tells him and presses a noisy kiss on his cheek, that has Suga blushing quite a bit. A lot.

Aoi attempts to make a fuss when Ukai-san takes her back into his arms but she’s too exhausted to carry it on for too long and by the time Saeko has put her in the stroller she’s already on her way back to Dreamland.

“It was good seeing you, Sugawara.”

Ukai-san smiles at him, not quite as wide as before. Suga smiles back, not quite as happy.

“You too, Ukai-san.”

They reach out at the same time and shake hands, the way they did only once before, on Suga’s graduation day.

_“It was a pleasure, Sugawara.”_

_“Likewise, Ukai-san.”_

“Don’t be a stranger, ok?”

“I won’t.”

And with that Ukai-san leaves, arm around Saeko’s waist and chin held high.

It’s only when they are out of sight, lost in the crowd, that Suga notices the card on the stand, right next to the hand mirror he had refused to look into. He takes it.

It’s a simple design, black on white, the stylized drawing of a volleyball on top.

‘Tokyo neighborhood association’ it says in gold, then a cell phone number and an address.

 

 

*

 

They are all huddled up on the couch watching a movie when Suga calls.

Daichi takes a look at the name on the screen and nearly jumps out of his seat in his haste to get to his phone. Ayame, who was resting her head on his thigh, tries to protest but he mouths ‘’it’s Suga’’ to her and she jumps nearly as high.

“Let me talk to him!”

“I haven’t even answered yet!”

He’s suddenly very aware that his mother is staring at him with an irritatingly wide smile on her face.

He turns his back to her and coughs. “Hello?”

Calm. Cool. Collected.

“Hey…”

Suga’s voice seems to come from inside his head, soft and mellow, it turns almost into a drawl on open vowels. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“No, no, just…Ayame, quiet down, I can’t hear anything!”

“Put him on speaker!”

Suga laughs, clearly he heard that. “Yeah, put me on speakerphone, Sawamura!”

“I can’t catch a break between you two. Here.”

He puts the phone on the table and Suga’s laughter fills the room. “Hello, everyone!”

“Hi, Suga-san!” Ayame and Kaede answer in chorus, moving from the couch to sit around the coffee table.

“Hello, Suga-kun,” Daichi’s mother, now hiding her mouth behind a hand. “Are you having a good time back home?”

“Hello, Sawamura-san! Yes, I just got back from the market, my father has a stand there.”

“That’s right, I remember you telling me he’s an artisan…”

“Yes, he specializes in wood carving but he’s an excellent painter as well, although he would never tell you so himself. He’s so modest it borders on ridiculous.”

Before he can talk himself out of it Daichi hears himself say “Reminds me of someone I know…”

On the other end of the line Suga snorts. “Oh shush it, you.”

“S-shush? You are telling _me_ to shush?”

At Daichi’s indignant sputters the kids giggle. “Can you do carving too, Suga-san?” Kaede asks, chin propped on his arms and tired eyes never leaving the phone.

He was yawning not five minutes ago, but even heavy-lidded he doesn’t want to miss a word.

“No, not really. I can do some very simple stuff, my father tried teaching me when I was in middle school but I kept showing up to school with cuts all over my hands, which worried my teachers quite a bit. Then, of course, I got into volleyball so we had to stop. It’s not easy, setting a ball with your hands all bandaged up!”

“Still that sounds so cool…”

“It is very cool! My father can literally transform plane chocks of wood into birds, flowers, fish. One time he even carved a mermaid for a client!”

Ayame lights up. “Really? A mermaid?”

Her tone says ‘’I want it’’ in clear letters. Suga hears it too. “Yes, and I’m sure if I ask him he could make one for you too…”

“Suga-san, would you really?”

Laughter again, tinkles of bells in the wind. “Of course, it might take him a while though.”

Kaede is biting his lip now, as if he wants to ask something for himself too but doesn’t dare.

But of course, he doesn’t need to.

“I could ask him for a little cat for you, Kaede-kun. Or maybe a tortoise?”

Daichi wants to tell him not to spoil the kids, to ask his father first if he has the time to work on two more pieces but if Suga had thought in any way that his father would mind he wouldn’t have suggested it at all. Besides, it’s so good to see the kids smile so wide.

_And all it took was_ him _…_

“Thanks, Suga,” he mutters, and he’s not sure why it comes out so low, so out of breath.

Suga’s answer is just as soft, “It’s no problem, really.”

Then louder, almost awkward. “It’s not like _I_ have to make them anyway…”

The children laugh and so does Daichi’s mother but Daichi can’t. His entire body is starting to ache with how badly he wants to hold Suga in his arms. Or maybe, at least take his hand in his. Simply getting to look at him, that too would be nice.

The living room falls quiet for a moment, then Ayame whispers, so close to the phone she’s nearly touching it with her nose, “I miss you, Suga-san.”

Already? It’s only been a day since she last saw him.

Kaede nods in agreement.

It’s only been a day…

“I miss you too, shrimps.”

Daichi can picture it as clearly as if Suga were standing right here, inches away from him, the softening of his eyes. The way they turn honey gold under the light.

“But I’ll be back on Monday, that’s only two days away!”

Suga wishes the kids goodnight and they both fall asleep with his voice in their ears, Kaede first and Ayame next. Daichi can’t really hear him then, but he thinks he catches the tender lull of a rhythm, the lilt of a song.

They hang up so Daichi can wish his mother goodnight – she’s staying over since it got so late – but as he stares at the living room ceiling, shifting and fidgeting in the narrow space of the couch he can’t help but reach out for the phone once again.

“What was that song you were singing to the kids?”

Suga chuckles in his ear and it sends shivers down Daichi’s spine. “Just a French nursery rhyme. Well, at least it should be, I don’t really remember the words so I mostly make it up as I go.”

It’s so Suga Daichi can’t help but laugh too.

“I’m not sure how I know it, to be honest. Maybe it’s something my mom used to sing,” he says it and his voice is strangely light, the way it never is when he talks about her, “yeah, doesn’t sound like something my father would do. When I was growing up he’d tuck me in and start talking about woods and carvings and the differences between subjects of decoration in the various dynasties. That was his idea of bedtime story.”

“Well, at least that sounds interesting! The few times he had to put me to bed all _my_ father did was complain about his cases.”

“And yet that didn’t turn you off of doing the same job!”

They laugh together and it’s as lovely as the kiss Suga had pressed on his cheek just this morning. How can it be?

“Hey, Suga…”

“What is it?”

“How does that little song go?”

And Suga sings it to him, pauses and hums when he can’t find the words to fill the blanks.

 

 

*

 

“A la ronde du muguet, si cette histoire vous a amusè, nous allons la, la…la? Um…recommencè!”

“Yeah, that’s exactly how it goes! An original French rhyme brought to you by yours truly!”

Daichi snorts on the other end of the line and shifts. Knowing him he must be in bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling and hair already a mess, flat where it’s resting on the pillow and comically upright on the sides. The way they’d been in the kitchen that night, and again the morning after.

Suga wishes he could see it. Card his fingers through Daichi’s hair to help him fix it.

“You should go to sleep now, captain. You know those kids will pull you out of bed by nine top.”

Daichi hums, a tired sound. “You are right, you are right.”

Of course he is.

“So…goodnight?”

“Goodnight, Suga.”

Neither of them hangs up at first, they stay quiet in each other’s ear. Then a sigh reaches Suga’s and it’s only silence. The beeping of an ended call, an empty line.

Suga sighs too and rests his head on the cupboard above the kitchen counter. He’s so in deep, so foolishly in l-

“Who was that?”

He starts at the voice coming by the door and bumps his head on the handle. “Ouch…”

“Sorry, Koushi. Didn’t mean to scare you…”

“’s fine.”

His father pours himself a glass of water and sits at the table, eyes fixed on him. “So who was it? You were singing, weren’t you?”

“Wha-were you eavesdropping?”

An offended scoff. If they were in a Ghibli movie his father’s hair would be ruffling in irritation, with a life of its own.

“No, I just heard you on the way to the bathroom so I decided to come in and check. I only heard you say goodnight to someone.”

Suga tugs at his bangs, tucks them behind his ears then moves them to cover his face again.

“So, who was it?” his father asks again. Then, before Suga’s silence, his expression clears. “It wasn’t a…a boyfriend, was it?”

_Oh God, no._

“No. No.”

Too loud, too panicky. Now his father is gaping at him.

Fuck.

Suga shows him a – shaky, uncertain – smile and tries a casual shrug. His entire body feels like it’s made of stone. “No one, it was just. I called to say goodnight to the kids.”

“Ah, the kids you babysit? Ayame-chan and Kaede-kun, is it?”

Suga nods but something in his father’s voice tells him he’s not quite convinced. “And they were up so late?”

And in fact…

“No, that was…that was Dai-um, Sawamura-san.”

“Oh.”

It’s just that, a ‘oh,’ and it’s enough to make Suga wince. It’s always been just the two of them, the two of them and no one else. His father learned fast how to read him. “Yeah, I told you we’re friends, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

But Suga is not ready to reveal this part of himself quite yet. “Well, I’m off to bed,” is all he says.

And his father lets him go, - for now, for today, - with nothing more than a ‘goodnight’ and a gentle pat on the back.

His father lets him, because that’s what his father always does, he gives him time. Suga takes it, grateful, with his heart in his throat, and goes to hide under the covers, with the phone still clutched in his hand.

Outside, the wind makes the spider lilies shudder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a stunning Sophora japonica tortuosa in a town in the north of Italy called ''the tree of lovers'' because it's on a gorgeous terrace with a bench couples usually sits on to watch the view. Make of that what you will, which is that Daichi and Suga are in love.


	19. Does my love ever reach you? part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is home?

It’s white before his eyes.

Daichi raises an arm to cover them, shield himself from the sun – the sun? how long has it been since the sun last came? – but a weight is pressing it down, forces it flat on the mattress.

_What the…_

He tries to prop himself up, elbow planted unsteady on the bed,  but just as he moves a sigh caresses his skin, the crook of his neck.

Daichi freezes and goosebumps break on his entire body.

“’Morning.”

Lips press on his cheek, familiar now and impossibly soft, and when Daichi turns it’s lovely brown eyes that meet his, streaked with gold and copper.

Daichi’s breath leaves him in a rush and Suga laughs at whatever dumb face he must be making right now. On Daichi’s blue bed sheets the silver of Suga’s hair seems to glow.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Suga asks and still he’s smiling, still he’s pressed so close to Daichi the smell of his hair seems to permeate the room and everything around them.

A spring breeze, warm and delicate. Flowers in full bloom.

“Nothing, just…” Daichi clears his throat, twice before the words finally come out. “You’re beautiful.”

_I’ve never said it before, have I?_

Suga rolls his eyes at him and slaps his chest. His cheeks are already turning a bright cherry red. “And you’re a slice of cheese, oh my God!”

For hours, it seems, he complains about Daichi and how embarrassing it is when he says things like that out of the blue, - “You really have no shame!” “I-it was just a compliment!” – and Daichi can’t do much more than blabber around because Suga is in his bed, with him, and the sunlight peeking through the drapes is catching in his eyes, in his smile, like he’s the one radiating it.

Radiating light and warmth.

His hand falls on Daichi’s chest – Daichi’s _bare_ chest – and starts drawing circles on his skin. Daichi follows it, the graceful way Suga’s fingers move, long – longer than his own – and slim. There’s a mole on his pinky, so faint it’s barely there, there are moles everywhere up his – bare, _bare_ – arm, one lovelier than the other.

“Your heartbeat just sped up,” Suga sing-songs and rests his chin where his fingers had been just moments before, “whatcha thinking about?”

He smirks and his eyes are almost closed with it. His nose has crinkled in the most adorable way.

Daichi’s mouth feels dry. “N-nothing much,” he says and when Suga shakes with laughter against him, above him, he huffs and takes his hand in his.

He brings it to his lips and kisses the back of it, then each knuckle. His fingertips, his palm.

And Suga turns perfectly still…

Until the sound of steps reaches their ears, only warning they get before their bedroom door is slammed open.

“Wake up, old men!”

 And just like that, there are children climbing on their bed.

They hurry to move apart but not too far, never too far.

Suga takes Kaede in his arms and they are both smiling, small and breathtaking. It turns into laughter as Kaede rubs his nose on Suga’s cheek and they flop down on the mattress together, snickering. Ayame lies down between them, head on Suga’s chest. “Go make breakfast, daddy,” she mutters, half the words lost in the fabric of Suga’s shirt.

Daichi sighs, but arguing would serve for nothing, he knows this too well, so he stands up in silence and walks to the door barefooted. The pavement is cold and he shivers, he’s already regretting getting up at all.

“Wake the others too, Dai,” Suga calls to him and Daichi nods, before the words really register into his brain.

_The others? What others?_

He throws a look at the hall and it’s longer, doors he doesn’t remember appear before his eyes. He blinks.

“Suga, what-”

“Time to wake up, sleepy head.”

Daichi turns to face Suga and the kids again but they are already asleep, their faces so close together their hair has twined, black and silver on a midnight blue sky.

“Come on, Dai.”

Someone moves him, shakes him by the shoulders with force.

Daichi blinks again and it’s his mother’s face that greets him. “What..”

She chuckles at his confusion and pushes his hair back from his forehead. “It’s almost 9:30, dear. The kids are already up.”

He nods, ‘I understand’, but in truth he has no clue. He has no clue what just happened. He passes a hand on his face and stands up, groggy and staggering. He feels unsteady, there’s a weird…pressure in his chest.

_Longing._

From Suga’s lips he hears it.

“Hey, dad.”

“Good morning.”

The kitchen table is already set, full of food. Fruit, pancakes, omelettes. Bowls with chocolate sauce and plain rice, slices of salmon and whipped cream. Cups of steaming hot tea, of warm milk and water. A carton of juice. His mother sure didn’t hold back.

With a slight push at his back she sends him to his seat at the head of the table.

There’s already a mug of coffee waiting for him. For a moment he takes it for hot cocoa and his stomach twists and ties itself in a knot.

The seat next to his is empty. “Morning.”

He presses a kiss on Ayame’s hair, ruffles Kaede’s, and finally he sits. Under the table his hand – empty, cold - closes in a fist.

 

 

*

 

“Koushi! Time to wake up!”

Suga grumbles and slaps his bedside table with an open palm, trying to get his alarm clock to shut the hell up.

His hand finds nothing to crash onto but for naked wood and - _shit that hurt_.

“Come on, Koushi, I made breakfast.”

“Ugh…”

Suga props himself on his elbows and looks around through the curtain of his hair. The walls are a pale blue not aqua, and there are dozens of volleyball posters hung everywhere. A watercolor of Montmartre. And he’s alone, no furry butts trying to suffocate him in his sleep.

“Koushi!”

He jumps and nearly topples off the bed at his father’s voice.

His father’s voice…

That’s right, he’s home.

He cards his fingers through his hair and huffs when they get stuck in a tangle of knots. “Fuck…”

“Koushi, it’s really time-”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.”

He opens the door just as his father is reaching out to knock again and nearly gets punched in the chest for it.

“Good morning.”

“Yeah, sure…”

_We’ll see._

His father chortles. Man of the countryside, he was raised to wake up at the crack of dawn, and always found Suga’s…lack of enthusiasm – to put it nicely – in the mornings to be absolutely hilarious.

Suga wishes he could laugh too, so early he doesn’t even remember how it’s done.

His father puts a hand on his back and all but walks him to the kitchen, steering him clear of all sharp edges and door frames. He’s had a lot of practice in nearly 26 years.

Breakfast is quiet business, always has been at their house. Talking to Suga before he’s had his coffee – two cups of disgustingly bitter, impossibly strong coffee – is pretty much like talking to a statue, completely unresponsive to external stimuli and disturbingly still. His father knows that too.

Besides, the man was never much the chatterbox in the first place.

“I planned to open the stand by ten, do you think you can get ready in 10 minutes?”

That’s all he says to Suga, and all he gets in response is a grunt.

Suga stands and nearly walks into the closed door. With nothing more than a curse he turns on his heels, grabs his half-drunk mug of coffee and takes it to the bathroom with him.

 

The market is hectic, buzzing with frantic energy and incessant noise.

It’s nearly impossible to walk between one stand and the other and the small crowds gathered around each stand are so tight Suga and his father are stuck each in one place with no chance to get out for the first couple of hours or so.

They eat the sandwiches Suga had prepared the night before in quick bites and covering their mouths with napkins not to seem rude because, again, there are people _everywhere_.

“How much for this charming little box, dear?”

“6000 yen!”

Suga has been throwing around numbers all morning, between a sip of water and a chew, he’s starting to feel like the lottery announcer.

“Oh, well, I guess my husband doesn’t have to know that!”

“If you look to the sides you’ll see its feet are brass and insides it’s dressed in red velvet.”

Suga picks up the jewelry box for the woman to see, making sure to catch the eyes of those who are standing near as well, and shows the details, opens the box and lets the woman and her friend touch the velvet for themselves. “My father selected the fabric specially for this piece, as you can see red complements the dark shade of this wood perfectly.”

The women stare at him and nod in agreement. He gives them his brightest of smiles and they reach for their purses at the same time.

Middle-aged ladies have always loved Suga. Must be his gentle features, they inspire trust and a – sometimes inappropriate and always misplaced – impelling need to pinch his cheeks.

“Thank you for your purchase, and make sure to come visit us at our shop!”

On the opposite side of the stand his father is all but screaming the properties of a rocking chair.

With these many people he can’t take his time with each client the way he always does, so every piece the people point at he illustrates and if more people are willing to buy the piece he lets them deal with it on their own. At most he’ll try to show other, similar pieces to make sure no one goes away dissatisfied but he always found action sale-like sells unpleasant.

“This drawer is rosewood, with dirty copper knobs. From up close you can see a spiral detail to them that gives the piece a more modern look…”

“This one is oak. Solid and reliable, it’s very easy to coordinate…”

“Birch wood is ideal for small spaces, it’s light and elegant, it has found a new appreciation in the last decade…”

His voice is getting hoarse in his effort to speak up – Suga’s father was never one to yell or scream, in fact Suga can’t remember there ever being a time where his father raised his voice with him.

Suga disappears under the counter for a moment and springs back up with the cooler in his hands. Without speaking a word as to not interrupt his father’s monologue he hands him a bottle of water.

His father thanks him with a quick smile and the women in the crowd coo.

“Your son looks like he’s a real sweetheart, Tsuneo-san!”

“Such a sweet face!”

Suga gets back to his side of the stand and bites the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

Then a voice rises above the others, high with realization, and it causes his heart to freeze.

“Oh, he looks so much like _her_ -”

“Shush. He can hear you.”

He and his father turn at the same time. Suga doesn’t recognize the woman who spoke first, dark, short-cropped hair framing a pale, oval face that’s now slack with embarrassment, but the old lady who shut her up is an old friend of nana. When she meets Suga’s eyes her face tightens around contrition, and an apology she can’t seem to give.

Instead she tugs her friend – daughter, niece, whatever – away and soon they disappear in the crowd.

The people who were close enough to hear them are staring at Suga now, only at Suga, like they are seeing him for the first time. He sees recognition on some of those faces, silent contemplation. Some are squinting, looking for who’s long gone in Suga’s features. Some others are just confused, probably people from out of town, or too young to remember his mother and the little time she stayed.

Suga turns his back to them all and drops the cooler under the table. It hits the ground with a dull, echoing thud and inside the ice and bottles rattle with the movement.

His hands are steady when they take in the small ring box a woman by the counter has been eyeing for the past five minutes. “This one is a simple piece, light butternut wood and a dove engraved on the top.”

His voice too, doesn’t waver. His heart, on the other hand…

He chances a look back at his father and he sees he has paled. The line of his mouth is tight, even around the words, around the subjects he loves so much, the hand he places on each piece as he explains it has curled into a tight fist. Under the white lights of the market his veins stand out, an ugly blue.

“Sugawara-kun?”

A client calls him and Suga has to look away from the statue of salt his father has turned into.

His heart is hard to swallow, stuck as it climbed up his throat. It’s so large, hammering in the column of his neck, Suga wishes he could kneel for a moment, hide under the stand and spit it out. Leave it there to be stomped on by this herd of people, his fellow citizens.

He’s sure they would like that, if he did. It’d give them a fresh rumor, one new thing to talk about.

_Hey, you know that gay kid? Tsuneo’s son, yes, the one with the weird hair. Guess what he did! Of course I wasn’t surprised, with a mother like that…_

_That whole family is cursed. They have Manjusaka flowers growing inside their house, for crying out loud!_

He shrugs his shoulders and releases his lips from the vice of his teeth.

“The inside of the box is in blue velvet and the pillow cut to hold the ring is removable and washable as well…”

He makes the sell and then a dozen more. Next to him he hears his father do the same.

 

 

*

 

The morning goes by in a blink.

Still locked inside because of the rain the kids do their homework and fight. Watch TV and fight. Play videogames and, perhaps inevitably, they fight. By lunch time Daichi’s voice has already gone hoarse from all the scolding and the kids too seem exhausted by this situation.

“I’m sorry, dad,” Ayame says for the twelfth time in the matter of hours, and for the first time today Kaede seems to agree with her, nods with an almost embarrassed expression on his face.

“Yeah, alright. I might actually accept that apology if I knew for sure I’m not going to find you two arguing again next time I turn my back!”

The kids lower their eyes and Daichi’s mother sighs. She serves the kids extra squid as a way to sweeten their mood but it works only for the time it takes them to eat it.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into them lately…” Daichi tells her while they are alone washing the dishes. “No, I know, it’s this bloody rain.”

“Oh honey, come on. They are kids, it’s only natural they fight from time to time.”

“From time to time, yes. Every five minutes, no.”

He dries the plate his mother hands him and puts it down, still dripping, with a sigh. “I don’t know how Suga does it every afternoon. They are always so settled when I come home from work…”

“Maybe he’s a modern days Mary Poppins!” his mother jokes and throws him a sideway glance when she notices the butchered work he’s doing with the dishes.

“Maybe…”

Would explain many things for sure, but Daichi always found Mary Poppins irritating more than anything. Too perfect, too chirpy, too everything.

He’s about to say something but he’s forced quiet once again as the tones begin to rise in the other room.

He throws a look into the living room and finds Ayame and Kaede sitting down on the floor and talking animatedly. Kaede is red in the cheeks and Ayame is moving her hands everywhere to explain something. Kaede doesn’t seem too impressed.

“What’s going on here?”

At the sound of Daichi’s voice they jump.

“Nothing!”

“Yeah, nothing!”

“Come on, Dai, they weren’t fighting now…”

His mother tries putting a hand on his shoulder but there’s something in the way the kids are covering the piece of paper they were hunched over that tells Daichi he should start to worry. Or at the very least, grow suspicious.

He drops the plate he’s pretending to dry on the kitchen counter and slowly makes his way to them, all the while being careful to never lose eye-contact. The children squirm under his gaze, palms planted on the paper.

There’s something written on it. A list of some kind.

“What are you doing?” he speaks as gently as possible and – still very slowly – lowers himself to the floor, till he’s kneeling before them.

“It’s nothing, dad.”

“Yeah, dad, why do you care so much anyway?”

Behind him his mother snorts and tries to cover it up with a polite cough.

Daichi, for his part, is shocked. “What- why…why do you feel the need to hide something from me? It can’t be anything good if you have to do that!”

Ayame seems offended by his lack of trust but Kaede is now lost in thought, head tilted to the side as though he’s contemplating something. “It’s nothing bad,” he says after moments of silence.

Then he looks at his sister. “Why are we hiding it? It’s nothing bad…”

Ayame looks back at him. “That’s true…b-but the way daddy was behaving creeped me out!”

Now Daichi’s mother is laughing without reserve while her son blushes and fidgets under the stern gazes of her grandchildren.

“It’s all your fault, dad!”

“Yes! What were you thinking, looking at us like that when we were doing nothing!”

They go on like this for a good five minutes and Daichi actually feels himself shrink under their reproaches. Ayame is standing now with her hands on her hips, in a pose she clearly stole from Suga.

How he wishes Suga were there…

Granted, the man would be probably laughing his ass off, maybe even filming this on his phone or adding an insult or two to the pile but…well, ok, there’s a slight chance Daichi might like it a little when Suga teases him. Maybe.

Daichi huffs and looks down to the floor to hide his embarrassment and…catches sight of Suga’s name on the paper, now forgotten and lying there uncovered. In one swift move he grabs it.

“Hey!”

“Daddy, come on!”

That’s Suga’s name alright.

Daichi skims over the messy writings and…

“This is a list of presents.”

Ayame is shifting her weight from one foot to the other, looking shy all of a sudden. Kaede is pouting. “It’s not done yet,” he protests.

“Yeah, it’s not done yet and Suga-san’s birthday is only in ten days!”

“Suga-kun has a birthday coming?” Daichi’s mother makes her way to them and looks at the list for herself. “Oh, you sweet darlings.”

The list is vague. Books, shirts, games. At number 8 there’s a simple drawing of a shrimp with a bunch of question marks, and number 9 is ‘go shopping’. Presumably to get more ideas.

“We have been on it for days, but I don’t know, daddy…” Ayame sits down next to him, she’s twirling a lock of hair around her finger, the way she does when she has a test or an important game.

“I think you are going at it the wrong way,” he tells her, all honesty.

When her and Kaede’s expression drop he regrets, and hurries to amend “No, I mean…I think it’d make Suga a lot happier to have something made by you.”

“Made by us?”

“Yeah. I’m sure that’s what he’d love most.”

Kaede is nodding along and it’s obvious he’s already thought of something but Ayame is still biting her lip in nerves. She takes the paper from Daichi’s hand and rips it to pieces, only to throw it in the trash with an impatient stomping in her walk. “I can’t do anything!”

“Ayame, what…”

“I can’t! Dede can draw, he’ll draw one of his pictures and Suga-san will love it but I don’t know how to do anything!”

“Ok, then buy him something. I was just saying that, honey, doesn’t mean you have to follow-”

“No? Yeah, you’re right.”

And just like that she deflates. The irritation from two seconds ago disappears, the line of her shoulders drops. “I just want to give him something nice.” She whispers it.

“I know, Aya, but don’t get sad over this. Suga wouldn’t want that.”

“Yeah…”

Daichi stands and puts a hand on her shoulder. She leans into him until her cheek is pressed against his sternum. “We’ll think of something together, alright? We still have ten days, that’s a lot of time.”

“Is it?”

“Sure.”

“You should call your grandfather, dear,” Daichi’s mother adds, “he’s an expert on buying presents at the last minute. After you hear some of his stories it’ll make you feel a lot better about yourself!”

Daichi and Ayame share a look behind her back and roll their eyes at the same time. Then Ayame seems to freeze, suddenly caught by a thought. “What are _you_ gonna get him, dad?”

All eyes turn to him. “Um, uh…”

His mother stands up and crosses her arms over her chest. “Please tell me you’re getting that boy something, Daichi.”

“O-of course I am, I’m just…not sure…”

Kaede stands up too and fixes him with a look that is nothing short of smug. A four years old, smug.

Daichi squirms under his gaze. Some people might also say that he’s blushing as well but those people would be lying because he’s 33 years old, a father of two, and he does not blush for such small, foolish reasons. The heat rising to his face is simply due to the temperature of the room.

“I thought maybe a book?” he tells them at last, or rather he asks.

Kaede’s expression clears - “Suga-san loves books!” – but Ayame and his mom both raise skeptic eyebrows at him.

“A book? Really, dad?”

“What kind of book exactly? Because if it’s just the first interesting book you find displayed in a store then it’s really sad, Daichi.”

“It’s not going to be the first book I find!” he plays with the hem of his shirt then, when he realizes how he must look, he lets it go and forces his arm along his side. “I have…this client who deals with…with rare books and I was thinking, maybe…”

Ayame still looks bored but his mother’s expression has changed, light with realization. “That’s a whole other story,” she limits herself to say and smiles.

“What?”

“Nothing, I only said I approve.”

_Yeah, but with the face of someone who approves a little too much…_

He’s about to open his mouth and ask her to follow him to the kitchen for a little chat but Ayame gasps, out of the blue and loud, and tugs at the sleeve of his shirt. “Dad!”

“What is it, Aya? Nana and I need to-”

“I know who we can ask for help!”

 

 

*

 

They close the stand earlier than others, many will probably have a quick dinner at the market to try and make some last-minute sells, but with his train leaving tomorrow this will be Suga’s only chance to spend some time with nana till after August and there’s no way he’s missing it.

Stupid bloody thesis. It’s never happened before, that Suga couldn’t spend his birthday with his family. Sure, his father promised he would come down on the 13th to celebrate but it’s not the same thing, having him there for less than a day, say hello and goodbye in the span of a few hours.

And his nana…she can’t travel for too long. She hates taking public transportations, with her wheelchair she says she always feels like everybody is staring. Suga would never ask her to sit on a train full of strangers for hours and hours, alone but for dad to keep her company and help her down on the platform. No way.

She tires so easily these days…

“What’s on your mind, kid?”

His father’s voice starts Suga out of his thoughts. He looks out the car window and sees they are almost there, to nana’s house. The outline of the mountains covers half the sky and if he squints Suga can see the light white halo of fog that always covers their peaks.

He’s been quiet the whole time. So much for enjoying his days home.

“It’s nothing, just…I was thinking about my birthday.”

“Oh.”

“It’s gonna be weird, not spending it here.”

“I know. But look at it this way, it’s the last sacrifice to make before you’re finally done.”

His father leaves the steering wheel for a second to pat his knee, a gesture of comfort. It’s been hard for him too, seeing each other so little. Suga knows that. When he’d first told dad he wanted to go to the city it had been a real blow for him. He’d tried not to show it, helping him with his applications and bringing home leaflet after leaflet of universities to take in consideration, but the haunted look in his eyes had gotten worse, deeper, darker, the more graduation day approached.

Now, after so many years apart, he’s gotten pretty used to it but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

It’s never been.

“Yeah, you’re right.”

His father’s hand returns to the wheel, but grips it with too much force.

Suga turns to look at him and is surprised to see the tight line of his jaw. “Dad, what-”

“You are going to stay there, aren’t you? In Tokyo, I mean.”

They always avoided this subject. They were both always so careful to.

“Yes.”

Not anymore.

“I see.”

“I want…I don’t want to spend the rest of my life there, dad. As much as I enjoy it I’m not sure if I could take it, but for now, yes.” Suga bites his lip, watches his father nod in understanding. “For what I want to do, it’s…Tokyo is the place.”

“Of course. This town doesn’t really need translators or…well, academics like you are.”

“Dad…”

His father smiles at him and it’s not sarcastic or resentful, it’s just understanding and so, so sad. Suga hates himself for putting it there.

And it must show on his face too because his father parks near nana’s house and holds his chin between his fingers, gently. When Suga still refuses to look up at him he squeezes a little and moves back and forth, forcing Suga to follow and making him laugh despite himself. “There. That’s better.”

He waits for Suga to fall quiet again before he continues. Then he lets out a breath.

“Koushi, listen to me. Since you were little I knew you were destined for bigger things. This town, these people…in the long run they would have only stifled you. And as much as I miss having you here, I never, _never_ wanted to see that happening to you.”

He lets Suga go and his smile is still there, still in place, making his eyes crinkle. Just the way Suga’s do. In this, they are exactly the same.

“Are we clear?”

Suga nods and smiles back. He feels lighter, much lighter than before but somehow even sadder. On the phone they are both so awkward and stifled, away from him it’s like Suga forgets how much he loves his father. How much he misses him.

But before he can relax, before he can get out of this car and hold his nana till they are both breathless and spend a night, finally, with the people he loves most, he needs to make something clear. He has to. “I’ll come back, you know?”

“I mean, once I have a job…hopefully I’ll get to leave more often. For the holidays, some long week-ends. I know it’s not the same but I’ll always come back.”

_I will. Not like…_

He can’t quite say that.

His father gapes at him – another thing his father never does – and it’s like he’s seeing Suga for the first time. Maybe he is, after all Suga never allowed himself to voice his fears – _this_ _fear_ \- before. To him, at least.

Moments pass and just as Suga is about to open the car door – _stupid, it was stupid to bring this up now_ – his father stops him with a hand on the shoulder.

“I know that, Koushi.”

They share a look.

Maybe he looks just like her, like that woman said at the market, but he’s not. Not about this, never about this.

“Of course I know.”

 

 

*

 

Mrs. Devaux greets them with open arms. Literally.

Ayame stands on her tippy toes to press a kiss on both her cheeks – “Just like the French do, dad!” – and Kaede waves at her with a shy, almost-not-really-there grin. That becomes considerably larger when she hurries to bring them some cookies in a simple ceramic plate.

“It’s good to see you, Sawamura-san,” she tells him with a smile and an energetic shake of hands.

“Likewise, Mrs. Devaux. Oh, and this is my mother, Sawamura Sachiko.”

“It’s a pleasure.”

“Celeste Devaux, the pleasure is mine.”

They shake hands too and Daichi notices a weird look cross his mother’s face, a mixture of confusion and disbelief. When Daichi elbows her she just brushes him off with a wave of her fingers.

“Take as many you want,” Mrs. Devaux is telling Ayame, “you could bring some of them home to have as a snack.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Devaux!”

Ayame is just about to do as much but Daichi steps in stops her with a playful flick on the back of her hand.

“Ow, dad!”

“Thank you, Mrs. Devaux, that’s lovely of you but I’m afraid it’ll ruin their appetite!”

“Dad, I promise it won’t.”

“Yeah,” Kaede tries to whisper with his mouth so full of cookies his cheeks are threatening to explode.

“Now that Suga-san is away…we just…we miss his cookies so much…” Ayame tugs at the hem of his shirt and her eyes are glistening with nostalgia, bottom lip trembling with her plea.

For a second Daichi wavers. For a second, then he remembers Suga’s words – _don’t get caught up in Ayame’s schemes_ – and crosses his arms over his chest.

“I miss them too but that’s not a good reason to get yourself sick on Mrs. Devaux’s!”

Ayame huffs but lets it go. She takes a couple more cookies and eats them as slowly as she can, to really savor them.

Daichi turns toward Mrs. Devaux and makes to apologize but the woman brushes him off with a smile and brings the plate of cookies in the backroom “So the kids won’t be tempted!”

“Thank you, we are sorry to barge in so suddenly-”

“Oh stop apologizing, Sawamura-san. It’s a pleasure for me, having you here.”

She shows Ayame a new type of iris plant that just arrived, yellow with orange/red streaks, and laughs when Ayame declares she wants it for their garden.

“We can get it, right, dad?”

Daichi walks to the counter and looks at the flowers, the tall stems, and shrugs. “Of course, if you want. I don’t know what Suga had in mind for the garden, if he had a certain project…but these are pretty for sure, so why not.”

His mother has come to stand by his side as well and is thumbing at the leaves with interest. “This looks in excellent conditions.”

“Thank you, Sawamura-san.” Then to Daichi Mrs. Devaux asks, “Koushi-kun has gone home for the week-end, right?”

“Yeah, he left yesterday morning. Should come back tomorrow night, Monday morning at the latest.”

“I hope he’s having a good time…” she whispers, a faraway look in her eyes.

“I’m sure he is. He’s with his family after all.”

“We should send him a text and ask him about the flower!” Ayame interrupts their exchange. Cookies forgotten on the counter she is already trying to fish for Daichi’s phone in his coat pockets.

“Alright, alright, just a second!”

She insists on taking a picture of the plant but Daichi takes the phone from her hands before she can compose the text. With all her abbreviations and emojis Ayame is not exactly the most understandable of texters.

“You are the only one who doesn’t understand, dad. And that’s because you text like an old man!”

Daichi’s mom and Mrs. Devaux laugh and Kaede too has to cover his mouth to hide his grin.

This is so unfair and untrue. Daichi is an excellent texter, he respects the grammar, the punctuation and he’s concise. Not the fastest but at least he doesn’t waste time to pick between disturbingly yellow faces that look all the same.

“Watch your tongue, missy,” he mutters, still intent on typing.

To Suga:

Ayame saw this and wanted to know if it’s ok for our garden

He shows it to Ayame, who rolls her eyes at him but gives the ok.

“It’s so boring…” she whispers to her brother as soon as she thinks Daichi won’t hear.

When he glowers at her she shows him her most angelic smile.

“You spend too much time with Suga, my child.”

He hits ‘send’ and nearly drops the phone to the ground at Ayame’s next words.

“Me? You are the one who goes out with him when me and Dede are at mom’s place!”

Mrs. Devaux stops fussing over the iris and throws him a wide-eyed, thoroughly amused look from above its petals. The lack of surprise in her expression is enough to make Daichi wonder if Suga told her something about…about them. The mere thought makes a pleasant warmth spread in his chest.

But it cools off as soon as he catches sight of his mother’s face. Shock that turns into mild worry that tinges itself with a vague but obvious smugness. “What’s that supposed to m-”

“It’s not like that!”

Ayame and Kaede share a confused look. “It’s not like what?”

_Oh God…_

“Nothing! Nothing.”

Daichi is _sweating_. “We met by accident, that’s all…” he whispers to his mother while he pretends to study a flower on a shelf near her.

He keeps to himself that that was only the first time. That the instance his children know of was entirely planned by him, and that he very much wants to…plan more.

“If you say so, dear,” his mother whispers back, just loud enough for Mrs. Devaux to hear and they share a look that’s far too knowing and far too dangerous for Daichi’s taste.

“W-well, anyway…”

Daichi looks around himself to try and change the subject but sudden the phone on the counter buzzes and three sets of hands make a grab for it.

“Leave it, dad!”

“I wanna see what Suga-san said!”

“It’s _my_ phone!”

Ayame opens the text to Daichi and Kaede’s protests and it’s a simple ‘yes, it’s lovely’ and a pretty flower emoji. Then Ayame clicks again and a picture appears, of Suga with his arms around an old lady that can only be his nana. They are both showing the thumbs up and have daisies stuck behind their ears.

Suga is smiling impossibly wide, a triumph of dimples, and he looks relaxed and happy. And beautiful, always beautiful.

“What a darling,” it’s his mom, looking at the picture from behind his shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah.” Daichi clears his throat and shoves the phone back in his pocket, a little too brusque, a little too quick. “Well, looks like we are buying this plant, Mrs. Devaux,” he says and frowns when he catches the dark look Mrs. Devaux is wearing.

A bitterness in the set of her lips she can’t really hide with the smile she gives them.

It’s gone soon though, too soon for the others to notice. Daichi blinks and it’s gone, and he begins to doubt it was ever really there at all.

“Oy, dad, we didn’t come here to buy this, remember?” Ayame’s words serve to distract him further and Daichi nearly slaps his forehead in realization.

“Oh, right! Mrs. Devaux, we need your help to-”

“It’s Suga-san’s birthday soon!”

“Ok, you’re telling it then…”

“I remember, the 13th right?”

“Yes! And we need your help to buy him a present.”

Mrs. Devaux forces the shadows away from her expression and once again she’s the lovely, bright woman Daichi has greeted on many sunny afternoons. She leans on the counter so she’s face to face with Ayame and grins. “Do you have an idea already?”

“Do you?”

She laughs and gestures for Ayame to come closer still. “I remember you having a certain conversation with Koushi-kun some weeks ago…”

Daichi’s mother elbows him in the side as if to ask ‘’what’s that about?’’ but Daichi honestly has no clue. Whatever they are talking about it must have happened when he was still at work. He shrugs.

Ayame frowns and starts beating her foot on the floor, like she always does when something is just not coming to her and she’s running out of patience. Which is very often, as she wasn’t gifted with much to begin with. She stares at Kaede, who’s deep in thoughts as well, but he too has no answers.

Then it’s like a light turning on inside her head, Ayame’s eyes widen and she points at Mrs. Devaux. “Frangipani!”

Mrs. Devaux winks, this was what she’d meant all along apparently, and Kaede grins at his sister like she just got them to win the lottery.

Frangipani. Daichi is not even sure what that is.

Mrs. Devaux walks to the phone behind the counter. “If I call now, I can get it for you by next week!”

“Yes, please!”

“Thank you, Mrs. Devaux.”

“Hey, hold on a second!” Daichi raises his hand and looks from one person to the other, completely and utterly lost. “What’s a frangipane supposed to be?”

 

 

*

 

Suga’s phone beeps not even a minute after he’s sent the message. It’s Ayame, telling him with a string of smiley emojis and flower emojis and flamenco dancer emojis that he looked cute in the picture and to say hello to his nana.

He opens his mouth to do just that but his phone beeps and buzzes again in his hand.

From Daichi:

We are buying that flower then

That’s it. No emojis, perfect grammar and spelling. Suga can hear Daichi’s voice saying those same words, clear as if he were standing right here with him, in his nana’s kitchen. Clipped, focused, a strong, almost commanding tone that goes perfectly with the straight line of Daichi’s shoulders, the purpose in his stride.

Suga places his phone on the counter and pinches his nose to keep from laughing.

It’s just…so hilarious, how awkward Daichi manages to sound through text. No nonsense even on the phone, about a stupid plant to put in the garden.

“That was your boss?” his nana asks and nudges him to get him to start setting the table.

He freezes.

“First it was my…my _boss’_ daughter, then it was my boss.”

That word sits heavy on his tongue. Having to call Daichi his ‘boss’…is like a slap in the face. His nana said it with air quotes in her voice and a joking smile but it still unsettles him.

Because - _shit_ \- that’s what they are.

In the eyes of strangers that’s what they are.

And going jogging together, watching movies, taking walks just the two of them, that’s…what? Overstepping? Being inappropriate?

“Do you have pictures of them, Kou? I want to see these kids…”

He gestures for her to take his phone without raising his eyes from the glasses he’s fixing by the seats.

“Here ma, let me help with that…”

“Oh please Tsuneo, you are worse with technology than I am!”

But who the fuck cares about how it looks from the outside? It’s like Mrs. Devaux said, happiness is not for those who build a cage all around them because they are too scared to try. Suga too, he’s been that person for so long and he’s tired now.

He won’t put what other people think of him above the possibility of happiness.

He won’t.

“Oh, my. Is this them?”

Suga nods at the spoon he’s arranging on the table and looks to his nana, who’s holding the phone up for him to see. It’s the picture of Ayame and Kaede in matching yellow hats he took out on the backyard.

“Yeah, that’s them,” he says with a smile and walks to her to show the rest.

“This is from when we were planting the roses, yes, they helped a lot, really. This is them on the swings, and…oh! Oh, this one is my favourite, they are watching a movie and super sleepy, yes two seconds after this was taken they were snoring pressed against each other. And this…”

Suga never realized how many pictures of the kids he’d taken. Looking through them, one by one in sequence it’s almost embarrassing. Except they are so unbelievably cute anyone in Suga’s place would have done exactly the same. For sure.

“And here we were all having dinner, Ayame took it when she noticed I kept stealing food from Daichi’s plate…”

He can’t help a laugh as he says it. It’s one of the most recent pictures they are looking at now, only Ayame’s eyes and her forehead are visible and behind her, in full focus, Kaede trying to give her bunny ears. Him and Daichi barely visible in the background.

Then Suga drags his thumb across the screen and there’s another picture, one that Suga has never seen, taken the same day as the other, only moments later. Ayame’s hair is still visible at the bottom of the frame, just like Kaede’s fingers, but it’s on him and Daichi the focus falls on.

And it’s…something.

It’s them. Suga is holding a meatball between his fingers – just stolen from Daichi’s pizza – and directing his most innocent smile to Daichi, who has his hand closed – gently, Suga remembers how gently – around Suga’s wrist, and he’s trying to tell him something, yell at him maybe, or scold him but he’s grinning too wide to get any words out.

There they are, frozen in time before Suga’s eyes and all of a sudden he’s speechless, no funny anecdotes to recount or jokes to make. Because the way they are smiling at each other there, then, is so light.

Suga knows now, he’s known for some time, how it feels to be looked at with such tenderness but _seeing_ Daichi look at him that way when he’s not lost in the moment with him is different. It’s different and it’s making it hard for him to breathe.

Is this…is this what other people see when they pass them by? In the park, jogging, at the train station, saying goodbye?

He scrolls to the next picture, another one with just the kids sleeping temple to temple, but doesn’t provide any commentary. He scrolls past and the pictures are over.

“Well, that’s it,” he says and shoves his phone back in his pocket. Takes a step away.

“Those kids are so adorable, darling,” his nana says back, and her voice is clear like her eyes.

She gestures for Suga and his father to help with the plates and Suga can’t help a sigh. Nana doesn’t seem to have noticed anything. Maybe…maybe there was nothing to notice, really. Maybe he just saw what he wanted to see, maybe he saw it because he knew what to look for.

Maybe it’s not that obvious.

“Just bring the pot here, Kou. Put it in the middle of the table, so if you want more broth you can just take it without making a fuss…”

Maybe it’s all in his head.

He does as he’s told, then starts serving everyone the broth. Takes a forkful of noodles, then adds the chicken and the boiled eggs to each plate.

When he hands his father his bowl he finds him staring down at the table with a strange look in his eyes.

 

Dinner is delicious. The noodles are overcooked and the broth is not spicy enough but his nana smiles whenever she catches Suga’s eyes from across the table and honestly nothing else matters in the whole of the world.

“It’s so good to have you back, cookie,” she tells him between a bite of meat and the other and reaches out to squeeze his hand, which has never left its place on the table the entire meal for exactly this reason.

“Thanks, nana. It’s good to be back too.”

She surprises him with cake, chili chocolate cake with whipped cream on top and Suga springs to his feet to hug her tight.

“You shouldn’t have!” he says, just to be polite because he’s ready to dive into that cake like a starved beast.

“Of course I did, Koushi! You are here, we should celebrate!”

She hugs him back and presses a loud kiss on his cheek and Suga loves her so, so much.

He gets the biggest slice and it’s over in two minutes, which makes her and his father laugh. Nana insists on him taking the rest back with him to Tokyo – “Oh nana, this cake won’t even get to see Tokyo through binoculars. It’ll be over long before I get on that train!” – and wipes his face with one of her embroidered handkerchiefs.

It comes away dirty with chocolate and whipped cream and still his nana is grinning because apparently he has more on the tip of his nose.

“Koushi loses all manners when it comes to your cakes, ma,” his father comments…with his beard full of crumbs.

“You’re the one to talk!”

“Why? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Nana waves her handkerchief around, right on dad’s beard and some of the crumbs fall to the ground. “You are both such slobs!” she says between giggles, she’s red in the face with amusement.

Neither of them are in the position to argue.

While they always try their best to hide their flaw, their instinct screaming to just forget it and leave a mess, in the 18 years they were together they somehow managed to never let the mess stick. In the shared rooms, that is. They kept it confined to their bedrooms and, in his father’s case, in their study.

But their nature is what it is and it reveals itself from time to time, in the smallest of ways.

Just this morning his dad almost tripped on a jacket Suga had left on the couch and that had unfortunately fallen on the floor. But nana doesn’t need to know about that.

Besides, if you take one look inside her closet, her drawers or even inside the cupboards, you’ll see she’s not as immune to the messy Sugawara gene as she’d like to believe. Or like for people to believe.

That too, though, is not something Suga plans on telling her. Ever.

Nana’s clouts are something to be feared.

“So tell me about life in the city!” she asks while he’s working on his second slice of cake. She always wants to know about it, his life, the city itself. The last time she went it was the ‘80s – or maybe the late ‘70s – and so much has changed since then.

Too much, she would say.

“Well, it’s nice. Same as usual, you know? College, work, work, college.” Under his nana’s gaze, boring holes into him, he forces himself to add, “I found this really cool ice-cream parlor?”

“Oh? Is it good?”

“Yes, it’s excellent! It’s run by this Italian lady, Miss Tina, and it’s real Italian gelato, super creamy and smooth. She does it herself without the help of any machines…”

“That’s impressive,” his father mutters with his mouth full of cake – he’s on his second slice too.

“It is! Daichi took me one night, he’s known Miss Tina for years and I’ve been dying to go back ever since…” his voice trails down as he notices the look dad and nana share, as he realizes how excited he got, over ice-cream. That he called Daichi by his first name.

Again.

His nana shifts on her chair and fusses with her dress till it’s covering her ankles again. “Daichi is…your employer, right?” she asks without really asking, strangely delicate in her words.

“Yes.”

He puts down his cake, all of a sudden he’s not hungry anymore. Employer sounds better, but it still doesn’t sound right. “We are friends.”

That’s better, but it’s not everything.

Although, judging by the way his nana is looking at him right now, he probably doesn’t need to voice that everything. He’s not sure he could in any case.

“I see.”

His father stays quiet.

“And he’s…is he married?”

“NO! No…”

As if he would ever…as if he could….

No.

“He’s divorced. He…he and his ex wife, they share custody of the kids. They live with Daichi, but Yurika-san sees them every week.”

His nana nods and covers his hand with hers, an apology for implying what she shouldn’t have. “How come they live with him, though? Usually, the judge always picks the mother…”

She’s trying to get some heat off of him, shifting on a subject less…personal.

His father has yet to utter a single word.

“She travels,” Suga tells her, eyes fixed on him, “she’s a documentarist, I think that’s why Daichi…” his father raises his own, “why Daichi got custody over her.”

“Yes, I can see how travelling would be a problem. Kids need stability…” his nana is saying, apparently oblivious to the tension in the room. “Don’t I know it. Moving back and forth, how are they supposed to make friends? No, no, kids need a home to grow in. Parents who love them.”

His father makes to speak. Opens and closes his mouth, chews the inside of his cheek.

“Not necessarily parents who are together. I grew with two people who hated each other but were stuck together by law, at that time, you see, there were no laws on divorce. And it was awful. Always screaming, always yelling, me and my sisters had to walk around the house with our ears covered.”

Suga nods, only listening with half a ear.

_Please say something, dad_ , he wants to ask. _Anything_.

He can’t stand this quiet.

“But parents are important. Two or three, step-parents, whatever, the important thing is that they are there to love their children. Not like that…like that good for nothing…” his nana’s voice cracks and just that is enough to make Suga and his father look away.

Look at her.

‘ _Good for nothing_ ’ registers into their brains at the exact same time, and they both stiffen.

Suga’s stomach drops to his feet.

Nana never called his mother by name, the few times she mentioned her in front of him. Always ‘that good for nothing,’ always ‘ _her_ ‘ hissed between her teeth. _That_ _woman_.

She beats her palm on the armrest of that wheelchair and when she sees Suga jump she reaches out to hold his hand. “Sorry, baby, it’s just…”

It’s just that she hates _her_. Always has.

For a woman forced to raise her children all by herself after her husband died way before his time, seeing another woman willingly leave her family behind…it’s inconceivable. More than that, it’s unacceptable.

It _is_ unacceptable.

“It’s alright, nana,” Suga squeezes her hands, calloused and tanned from years of working in the fields, and presses a kiss on the backs of them. “It’s alright.”

His father shakes himself from the daze and comes to rest his arm around her shoulder. Under the light his eyes look brighter than ever.

 

They leave soon after that.

Nana is tired but still waves them away when they offer to help her to bed.

“I manage every single day without you two, don’t try to pull that on me!”

As they are making their way to the car she screams to their backs “I changed both your diapers!” and they sigh in relief. If she throws that back into their faces that means the bout of anger from before is gone, at least in part, and it’s easier to say goodbye knowing that.

Or it would be, if once alone, the tension from before weren’t still persisting.

“Nice dinner, uh?”

“Yes, the cake was delicious.”

They continue like this for a couple of minutes, then they give up and let silence fall.

Silence is what they know best.

Silence when there are too many things yet to say.

It fills the spaces between them, till it’s suffocating them. Suga often thinks of it as the elephant in the room, but the shape of their silence is a very clear silhouette. Almost twenty-two years since she left and she’s more present than ever.

She would vanish in a cloud of smoke if Suga were to reach out, but she’s here. In a way, she’s never left.

She leads them to their bedrooms, closes doors behind them and thrives in the silence.

The near silence. The wind is blowing now and the spider lilies move with it. One of them moves so close it brushes against Suga’s shirt while he’s standing near the window, prying it wide open.

He opens his palm and at the next gust of wind the flower is in his hand.

He doesn’t close a fist around it, and just as fast as it came the lily moves back, away from him.

Without thinking Suga reaches for his phone. He’s lying in bed still fully dressed when Daichi finally answers.

“Hey!”

“Hi…”

“What is it? You sound weird.”

It took Daichi only an ‘hi’ to guess.

Suga closes his eyes to the sound of his voice. “Tell me about your day,” he asks.

And Daichi does.

 

It’s the light that wakes him, only moments after he’s gone to sleep.

His phone is resting on the pillow beside him and when Suga pokes it awake to check the time – _5:45, already?_ – the message from Daichi is the first thing he sees.

Sleep tight.

Suga traces the words with a finger but doesn’t answer them. Instead he leaves the phone on the bedside drawer and climbs outside, over the window pane and into the red sea of flowers. As he sits they caress his cheeks.

The sky is still pink, only now beginning to golden when his father finds him.

Suga waits for him to sit by his side and takes the mug he’s handing him with a nod.

“I knew you’d be here,” dad tells him.

Of course he knew. Since he was little, this was Suga’s favourite place to hide.

He takes a sip of his coffee. “Tell me about her,” he says.

Finally.

“Please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know nothing much happened in this chapter but I needed to establish Suga's relationship with his father before having them talk about /her/. That one's coming next chapter, I promise.


	20. Does my love ever reach you? part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Truths and love.

They met in Paris. Through the streets of Montmartre they caught the other’s eyes and when they kept running into each other, first at the Moulin de la Galette, then in the famous cemetery, and then again on top of the Sacrè Coeur, Elèa – that’s how his father calls her, _Elèa_ , a sigh, or maybe a prayer – had walked to him and asked him to take her picture.

“I didn’t know what to do. She had to put the camera in my hands because I was just frozen before her…”

The pictures came out terrible, out of focus or too dark, but his mother didn’t seem to mind.

“She took me by the arm and told me of this bistrot she’d heard about. We  had brunch, then dinner. We talked till 2, the owner had to kick us out.”

Suga listens and his coffee turns cold, forgotten in his hands. He’s never heard his father talk like this before. He’s quiet and the words seem to flow out of him with a naturalness he’s never possessed, a simplicity that speaks of years spent thinking about these moments.

“Well, _she_ talked. You know me, Koushi, I was never much the conversationalist. But she was, she was…a breath of fresh hair. She was smart, you know? If you took her to a museum she’d tell you more than a guide. And she was beautiful, oh if she was beautiful…”

He stops to look at Suga and Suga turns to stare at the sky, a pale yellow above them but still blue by the mountains.

His father looks away.                                                                        

“She was charming and elegant and all the things that I was not. But then, when the night came, after a day of entertaining the people around her she’d always fall quiet. Alone at dinner, in my hotel room, there was no way to get laughter out of her.”

“That was part of her charm too. To me, her melancholy made her even more interesting, her silence was a mystery. I was supposed to stay in France for three months, I stayed for five years.”

All because of her. His father is one of the most focused people he knows, passionate only when it comes to their job, and steady like the ground beneath his feet. It’s difficult for Suga, picturing him so taken by a woman that he would forget his duties, his plans, himself.

And yet…that’s what happened, isn’t it? It all disappeared before her. Duties, plans. Him.

Suga puts the mug on the ground, in the tall grass it almost disappears too. He speaks for the first time in minutes, since he first asked, and his voice comes out rough, rugged like he hasn’t spoken a word in years. “And when…I mean, when did I…?”

“About a year after we got together. I’d asked her to marry me six weeks after we first met-”

Suga starts and before his widened eyes his father cracks the ghost of a smile. “I know. Doesn’t seem like something I would do, uh?”

He rests his head back on the wall, on this house that he bought for a family. His family.

“But I loved her, I really did.”

_I still do_ , he doesn’t say but Suga is good at reading between the lines. And he recognizes that look, his father staring out of the window for months after she left. Refusing to buy another house, a smaller house, closer to the shop and closer to nana, because _what if_.

What if she comes back and sees other people living it in, other kids playing in the garden. What if.

Suga recognizes that look, it’s the same he’s been wearing lately, since he met...

“And then?”

“And then we got married. Two weeks after I proposed, we asked a priest if he could marry us. Took us a whole year to clear all the papers, I wasn’t a French citizen, I wasn’t even Christian, but for the years we were together we always celebrated that day as our anniversary.”

“The day that priest told you no?”

His father laughs and, unexpected, Suga does too. “Yeah. And then, there you were. It all happened so fast, me and her, the wedding that didn’t happen, her family worrying she was making a mistake, my mother threatening to kill me if I got married without her there…”

“But when I first held you in my arms it all stopped, it all quieted down.”

Suga meets his father’s eyes. “You held the moon and the stars in your tiny hands,” his father says and now his smile is different, it’s happy, “and when you smiled you outshined the sun.”

He moves Suga’s hair away from his face. “That’s still true.”

Suga hugs his legs to his chest and shivers when a gust of wind takes them by surprise. Red petals stroke his cheek.

It’s only because of his father, that Suga never let the gaping hole in his heart grow vast enough to swallow him whole. It’s only thanks to him. Because maybe, surely, Suga’s life lacked for something, but love was never that something he missed.

His father, his nana, they made sure of it.

But still…

“And her? How did she…was she happy?”

_About me. Was she happy for having me?_

His father’s expression freezes, darkens like a room with the drapes closed shut. “She was.” Then, after a pause, “I thought she was.”

“Far too often I’d find her awake in the middle of the night, sitting by your crib and just…watching you sleep. For the first few months after you were born she wouldn’t let anybody hold you, not friends nor relatives. Only me and her mother, her aunt. She’d fuss over you endlessly whenever we had to go outside. She loved you, Koushi.”

“I…I don’t know if that’s better or worse than if she hadn’t loved you at all. But it’s the only thing I’m sure of.”

Suga tries to picture her. The woman from his dreams, the one that wouldn’t even look him in the eyes as he spoke, watching him sleep, overdressing him on a hot summer day and holding him in her arms with a smile on her face. He tries and when he finds that he _can_ tears prickle his eyes.

They blurry his vision, till all he sees are drops of red, and they overflow to fall on his cheeks.

“Keep going,” he tells his father, who makes no move to console him, only nods at his words.

“We were happy, for a while. Well, I was. Your mother, now I’m not so sure. I’d go to work in the morning and find you two playing on the floor, surrounded by too many toys. She was with you from the moment you opened your eyes to the moment you’d close them. I didn’t understand at the time, how wrong it was that her life had started to revolve only around you.”

A muscle twitches in his jaw. “After a year of this…we weren’t in a great situation, money-wise, so she had to start working again. She didn’t want to, at first, she didn’t like the idea of leaving you with a stranger but thankfully her mom and aunt moved to Paris for a while to help out. You stayed with them in the morning and then by four we both would come back and take you home. Or maybe, if the weather was nice, to the park.”

His grandmother. His great-aunt.

More faces he can’t recall. The family he never knew.

“What happened, then? If you were so happy, what happened?”

He has to ask. He can’t stand to hear how wonderful it used to be, before he could retain the memories, before he could learn how to cling onto a moment.

His father looks at him again, at his eyes, now dry, at the goosebumps rising on his arms, and shrugs. “I don’t know,” he says. He adds, “I know the facts, I know what I think but I can’t know for sure if my guess is Elèa’s truth.”

“Then tell me _your_ truth.”

“Alright.” His father moves and now they are sitting closer. “Alright.”

“I was offered a job here. During an auction my pieces were noticed by a Japanese artist, not just an artisan, Koushi, he was an artist. A master of his craft. If I accepted I’d become his apprentice, one of his few, and it was…too big a chance for me to say no to. Elèa knew that too.”

“So you moved back here?”

“So we moved back here. I had to take the train every morning to get to the store, but it was worth it. Everything I know now, about woods, about the art behind carving, I learned from Master Ginko. We stayed with mom for a while and she loved it, having you finally here. She spoiled you rotten, but you know that because she still does.”

Suga attempts a smile but it doesn’t reach his eyes. His limbs, his insides feel heavy, frozen with dread. Seven months, that’s how long his mother stayed, after coming to Miyagi.

They are getting there.

He’s had twenty years to prepare for this, but now he knows twenty more wouldn’t have been enough.

“Then?”

“Then we found this house. Moved in. Your mother was without a job again, but this time it weighed her down. Before too, when she was busy taking care of you she’d…it was like she’d forget to live her life too. She would forget to call her mother, ignore her friends…”

“But now it was different because, well, except for me and you she had no one to turn to for company. And I was at the store till late in the afternoon and you, you were just a baby. She was lonely and I should have noticed, I did, but every day I remember thinking ‘maybe one of these days she’ll meet someone’. But she never did. Except for taking you out, or going grocery shopping, she never left the house. And this is something I found out only after she was gone.”

His father shakes his head and smiles but it’s not a happy smile. It’s not happy, it’s not serene. “I wasn’t a good husband then. I left her alone and I shouldn’t have.”

“Dad…”

Suga tries to reach out but his father waves it off. ‘’I’m fine’’ he seems to be saying. He doesn’t voice it because he knows it’s a lie.

Suga spent years feeling guilty over it. He thought that maybe if he had been a good enough son, she wouldn’t have left. If he had cried less, or slept more. Not asked for this or that toy, she would have grown to love him so much no one could have forced them apart.

Turns out his father had been playing the same game of ‘what if’s.

But…he told Suga she had loved him. He told Suga they had been happy.

How can that stop in a matter of months? How can love not be a good enough reason to stay?

How can it not be enough?

“I don’t know, Koushi. I don’t know.”

He hadn’t even realized he’d said it out loud.

His father passes an arm around his shoulder and holds him for a second, face hidden in his hair.

“I left her alone for months…” he whispers, then, before Suga can blink, he lets him go again.

He clears his throat. “It was like that for months. Six. Six months. I’d come home, in our new, beautiful home, and find you playing with your toys on the floor and her by the window, reading maybe, or simply looking outside to the mountains. Sometimes I found you two outside in the grass, while she told you a story. But those were the good days.”

The good days.

All Suga has are pieces, flashes and images that alone make no sense. Words he knows that he never studied. Stories he doesn’t remember reading that he doesn’t know the ending of.

His nails bite into the flesh of his arms and he thinks of the song he sang to the kids and Daichi the other night. Daichi’s voice in his ears, telling him about his day.

“The kids miss you…”

And how he’d gone quiet after. “Come back soon because the kids miss you.”

“And she left just like that?” he asks.

He promised himself he’d ask all the things he wanted an answer to. No answer so far has been one Suga had expected.

His father shakes his head and the first sunrays catch the salt and pepper of his hair. “No, it wasn’t…it wasn’t just like that.”

Suga swallows and leans back on the wall, on his home, for support. The sun gets in his eyes.

“We got a call one night, it was 2 in the morning I think. We were sleeping, you and I, Elèa I don’t know because when the phone woke me she was already up, in her robe, her hair perfect and make-up still on. Anyway, it was…it was her aunt, her mother’s sister. Told us your grandma had been in an accident.”

His father doesn’t say the words.

That his grandma died when he was little is one of the few things Suga knows.

It still guts him.

“Elèa was…she was devastated. We didn’t have the money to fly back for the funeral and this just added to her grief.”

Dad says nothing he did or said could bring her comfort. He says her aunt tried to call every day but she’d never answer. When he was home too, she’d ask him to say she was out.

“And I did, it was the only thing I could do for her. She felt guilty for not having been there with her mother. For not having called more, for leaving without looking back. That’s all I could get out of her. But she came to hate it here. I could see it in her eyes. Everything, from the mountains to the bumpy streets, the people, this house. She resented everything, but most of all I think she resented herself.”

She lost her mother.

Suga knows how that feels.

“She lasted four weeks. Four weeks where she never left her bed. I started bringing my pieces home so I could spend more time with her, with you, but she would hardly look at me when I was there. You, for your part, I think you sensed something was wrong because you tried to never make a fuss. You’d often lie in our bed with her and after work I’d find you sitting on my pillow and brushing her hair. It wasn’t something a kid should do, being this careful, I mean. Tiptoeing around the house.”

“I’d take you out when I could and then you were the smiley, sweet baby you always had been. You’d boss me around on the playground, tell me to do this or that sand sculpture. Push you higher on the swings. But I didn’t trust myself to leave Elèa alone for too long, and once we set foot back in the house I’d fall quiet again, and you with me.”

“Then one day Elèa went out, I think it was the first time since we got that call, just to buy some groceries at Kenta’s store but it was something. When she told me I hugged her and she didn’t try to pull me away. It had gone well, in a way it had even been nice so she did it again the next day, and the day after too. The refrigerator almost couldn’t close with all the food in it but I didn’t care. It was good for her, going out, talking to people…”

His father chews the inside of his cheek and for a minute it’s the wind blowing and moving the flowers the only sound around them.

“On the fifth day she lost you.”

The mug topples over on the grass.

“She called me from the store, she was hysterical. When she told me what had happened Ginko-san closed the store and drove me here. We looked for you in other stores, at the little arcade down the street. We called my mom to see if somehow you’d run all the way to her house. Nothing. Then, as we were making our way home we saw you. You were sitting right here, curled in a ball between the flowers.”

“Elèa almost tripped down the stairs on her way to you, and I remember you said ‘Mom, please don’t cry’ and she just cried harder. I was crying too, we were so scared.”

If it had been just two months ago, if Suga had asked then, he would have had to fight every instinct in his body not to curl up in a ball, again like twenty-two years ago, and hide his face away. He would have whispered he was sorry, and force his father to spell it out for him, that it hadn’t been his fault.

And he still would have not believed him.

Now Suga looks up to the sky and lets it look at his tears.

“Three days later she left. She called me at work again, to ask me what time I’d be home. She timed it so that we wouldn’t cross paths and so that you wouldn’t be alone for too long. When I got here I found you in your old playpen. You could have easily climbed out of it but you’d stayed put, just staring at the door in silence.”

“I asked you ‘what’s wrong, kiddo’ and all you said was ’mom is gone, but I dunno where.’”

Silence falls between them, the longest quiet. The wind caresses Suga’s cheeks and before his and his father’s gazes it makes the flowers dance.

Slowly, the sky turns a pale azure, the first voices can be heard around the town.

The squeaking of the shutter of Kobayashi-san’s store. A baby crying two houses down. Two men laughing and passing them by, greeting his dad and him with a friendly wave. One of them winks at Suga, clearly alcohol was involved in their night out.

“She would have left anyway,” Suga says when they are gone, to his father but still looking at the mountains.

Even if he had been the best son she could have asked for. Even if he hadn’t run away that day, she still would have found a reason to leave. Because the reason was rooted deep inside of her.

“Yes. She would have.”

“One night, not long before her mother died, Elèa told me she felt like she was being strangled here, confined in this small town. I think when she lost sight of you…she found an excuse to run away from here. From it all. She convinced herself that we’d be better off without her.”

Well, they made it out fine. More than fine, all things considered. But better? That, Suga can’t say.

This is the only family he’s ever known, the one life he’s gotten to live. He can’t compare it to a dream, or hypotheticals. To memories that might not be true.

He doesn’t want to, not anymore.

“But if it hadn’t been that, she’d have looked for another excuse. In the end this was never her place.”

It isn’t.

The ghost of her, it’s their stubborn clinging to a past they never had. Elèa, his mother, she left a long time ago. In a way, she was never really here.

“I kept in touch with her aunt for a while, I was worried about her, I thought she might do something stupid…”

“Last I heard she was working for a travel magazine, going from a place to the other. Her aunt told me…she told me that after a while she couldn’t stomach to stay in Paris either. She couldn’t stomach to stay anywhere.”

Suga’s heart squeezes painfully in his chest, for the last time. She could never find her home. She felt out of place here, then when she went back to Paris, the city where she had grown, she found that Paris wasn’t it either. That Paris was not home, that Paris carried no answers to her doubts.

It’s sad. Suga wishes he could be angry, but all he feels is sorry for her. “Did you ever try to bring her back?” he asks, even though he knows too well what his father is going to say.

“No. There is no point in forcing a person to stay when they don’t want to.”

It would have only hurt her more. And it would have hurt them too.

Maybe it really is better this way after all.

Silence, then his father stands up. “We better hurry now or we’ll get to the market when all the other stands are closing.”

Suga stands too and brushes strands of grass off his pants. His eyes are clear now. His cheeks, cold and sticky, catch the light of the sun where the tears have dried.

He takes a step, and then another, and for once gravity doesn’t weigh him down.

 

 

*

 

Daichi steps out of the gym room still panting and covered in sweat.

The house is silent but for him, and his mom beating eggs downstairs. He moves as quiet as he can close to Kaede’s room and sighs in relief when no sound follows, coming from inside.

It’s early, way too early for the kids to be awake. And he’s too tired still to handle two fully awake children.

He gets to his bedroom and smiles when he sees the bed, perfectly made, with fresh clean sheets. Trust his mother to make the bed, clean the floor and dust off the drawers all before 7 am. The woman probably sleeps with a sweeper under her arm.

Daichi walks into his bathroom – the reason why he ended up picking this house: the private bathroom linked only to his bedroom, all for him, pure bliss – and chuckles at the clean towels, the sparkling sink, the spotless mirror. Just for that he wishes his mom would never leave.

He takes off his shirt and throws it in the hamper, snatches the phone from deep inside the pocket of his gym shorts, and notices one unread message blinking at him in block letters under the picture of the kids he has as his background. He opens it with jittery fingers and can’t help a disappointed sigh when he sees who sent it. Or rather, who _didn’t_ send it.

Man, he’s in so deep. How did he get so in deep that even a simple text can cause…weird fluttering feelings that are not butterflies to start low in his stomach.

He looks behind him, like he expects somebody to walk in and just point and laugh at him for being a 12 years old kid trapped in a 33 years old’s body, and closes the bathroom door with a push that is way too hard and way too loud. He double-locks it and finally gets to reading.

The message is from Tanaka, asking him if they can go get drinks this Saturday.

Yurika is scheduled to watch the kids then, and it has been a while since Daichi last hang out with the guys…

He types a quick yes.

His phone buzzes again a few moments later.

From Tanaka:

bring suga 2 if u want

_Bring Suga too if you want._

It actually echoes in his head.

Daichi thinks of a response to type but nothing comes to him. It’d be nice, to bring Suga along. Really nice. Getting to spend some time with him outside of the house, seeing him interact with his friends. Make stupid jokes just to watch him laugh that laughter of his, not the one that’s wind chimes and clinking of silver, but his unrestrained, full-body laughter that always has passersby stop in the middle of the sidewalk to stare.

Oh God, he’s getting sappy again…

He sends Tanaka a quick ‘I’ll ask,’ more information would make for more ammo for inappropriate, irritating jokes and Daichi is not in the mood for that. He’s already feeling too much of a joke by himself, he doesn’t need to become one for his friends as well.

His phone buzzes once again in his hand and he nearly drops it in surprise.

“Jesus…”

He brings his other hand to his chest, where his heart is hammering. He looks down at the screen and it starts beating twice as fast, twice as loud.

Fuck, he really is getting too old for this…

It’s simple, this message. No emojis, no pictures.

‘Thank you’ is all Suga says. But because it’s Suga all Daichi can do before it is smile.

‘Anytime’ he sends back.

Suga has no idea how much he means it.

He leaves the phone by the sink without waiting for an answer, he doesn’t expect one, and steps out of his shorts and underwear. The water is cold, like Daichi needs it right now, and he sucks in a breath before going under, head first.

Goosebumps rise on his arms. With Suga’s voice, sleepy and slurred, playing like a song in his head he barely even notices.

 

 

*

 

The hours at the market are tinged with a sort of sadness that Suga knows too well.

Every sale he makes he checks the clock and his stomach drops when he sees he’s lost five, ten, fifteen minutes of the few hours he has left before he needs to leave again. Hop on that train and go back to Tokyo.

And he loves Tokyo, of course - after so many years confined in the smallness of his town how could he _not_ , - and ever since he met the kids and…and Daichi he’s come to love his life there as well. But it’s still not home. It could never be home, when his father is so far away.

Because now it’s clear, in a way it had never been before, just how much his father loves him. How hard he struggled to raise Suga by himself, and never have him lack for something. How he hurt, and still hurts in that house full of ghosts.

Suga doesn’t want him to be alone. There, between those walls.

He chances a look at him, discussing a coat rack with two elderly women, and starts at how easy his smile is, the way he’s talking with his hands. His father never talks with his hands.

“Yes, this is in mahogany. If you are a fan of dark woods, there is nothing better than mahogany. It’s hard and compact, resilient and surprisingly easy to carve and work with…”

The women nod at his words and touch the smooth wood with their fingers. Then one of them looks up and meets Suga’s eyes, and smiles a surprisingly wide smile.

“Oh my, don’t tell me that’s…”

She makes her way to him and takes one of his hands in hers. Through his confusion Suga manages to remember his manners and smiles back at her. “Hello?”

“He doesn’t remember me, does he?” she asks his father, while her friend stays behind, clearly as confused as Suga is by the whole thing.

“Well, he was a baby back then…” his father says and places a hand on Suga’s shoulder. “This is Harata-san. She used to live in the house across your nana’s when you were little.”

“The one where now lives that family with a dozen kids?”

“Yes, exactly.”

Suga squeezes the old lady’s hands, still closed around his. “It’s a pleasure, Harata-san. I’m sorry I don’t remember…”

“That’s quite alright, dear. Your father’s right, you were very small when I moved away. In fact, I think it happened just a few months _after_ …”

She doesn’t say anything more, but her after is significant enough. After your mother left. It’s the event that divides his life in Miyagi into two. Before his mother left and after.

His father’s hand stays firm on his shoulder, only wavers, and Suga’s heart does the same. Only for a beat though, because in the next it’s steady again. A little heavier, maybe, but not enough to slow down.

Steady.

“You were the cutest baby I’ve ever seen, I swear,” Harata-san is telling him and her eyes are shining with delight, “I know mothers are supposed to say their babies are the cutest but you were so adorable, with your rosy cheeks and those big doe eyes!”

She pats his – not so rosy – cheeks with a gentle hand and assures him that “You’ve grown into such a beautiful boy, as well! Usually pretty children turn ugly with age-”

“Satsuki!”

“Oh, you know it’s true, Makoto!” and again to Suga, “but you, oh such a gorgeous face! No offense, Tsuneo-san, but he looks nothing like you!”

Suga can’t help a snort, and his father too seems amused more than offended. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

“Mmm, I don’t remember your mother much, to be honest, but you are definitely closer to her in looks. Although not that much, am I right?”

It’s the same comment as yesterday, more or less, but the way Harata-san delivers it is as earnest as it is sensible. Suga stands still, eyes fixed on his father, because this is a question he hadn’t thought of asking this morning and now he wishes he had.

Does his father see her whenever he looks at Suga? Does it hurt him, to see how little Suga looks like him and how much he looks like her, when it was him who raised him, when he was the one who stayed?

His father meets Suga’s eyes and smiles a crooked smile, one that’s neither happy or sad, but only gentle. “Yeah, he…he takes after her in some things but he’s always been his own person, is what I like to say.”

Harata-san leaves soon after that, dragged by her friend, Makoto-san, who reminds her they still have to look at the jewelry stands.

“Can you get the coat rack delivered by Thursday, Tsuneo-san?”

“Of course, I’ll bring it to you myself.”

She nods approvingly at dad and blows a kiss in Suga’s direction. “It was so good to see you, Koushi-kun.”

“Likewise, Harata-san.”

Silence falls in the stand. The market too, is a lot quieter today. Most people are still sleeping this time of day on a Sunday, so the only clients stopping by are old couples and stay-at-home mothers forced out of bed by their children.

With the excuse of dusting off a chest Suga walks closer to his father and nudges him with an elbow.

“What is it, Kou?”

Kou. His father started calling him that after he heard Tooru use it.

Suga shrugs and tries not to think too much about the nerves twisting his stomach and tying it in knots. “Were you…telling the truth just now? About me not looking much like her?”

_Or were you just trying not to make me feel bad?_

Suga doesn’t know what it is the answer he wants. Maybe he just wants another truth.

His father stops checking the list of pieces to delivery and the dates they were promised by to stare at Suga with wide, surprised eyes. “Yes, of course. Why would I lie about that?” he says, simply.

It is simple. Why would he lie now, about this, after the conversation they had this morning?

Suga lets out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “Ok…”

“There are some things that…” he hesitates, rubs his jaw with the pen, then gives up. “You look like her when you read.”

“You both get completely lost in it, you furrow your brows, stay perfectly still for hours. And you pout, too.”

“I pout when I read?”

“Oh, yes. I don’t know if it depends on what you are reading or not but I often find you pouting down at your books, like you are disappointed or something.”

Suga passes a hand on his lips, as if to check if he’s pouting now. How has he never noticed this before?

“She used to do it too. But it’s normal, that you carry something of her in you. The color of your hair too is the same, your nose, your ears…”

“But?”

There was a ‘but’ in the inflection of his father’s voice. Suga waits.

“But she was colder than you are. Her…kind of beauty, simply looking at her you’d think her very stand-offish. That’s something you never were. And I still have no clue where you got your lips, Elèa’s were much, much thinner and mine, well, even when I don’t grow a beard they are nowhere to be found.”

It’s so random it makes Suga laugh, and his father smiles like he’s proud of himself. “Yeah, that smile too is all your own, Koushi…”

Suga covers his mouth when a couple of men passes by and bites the inside of his cheek to keep from starting again. It can’t be good publicity, laughing uproariously in the face of possible clients. And his father’s got two more weeks of this, he can’t get a bad rep.

Still, it’s good talking with his father like this, about her without having to tiptoe around every word, tensing at every pause.

“It’s nice, getting to talk to you like this…”

Suga looks at his father. “I was thinking the exact same thing!”

And they keep smiling.

His father claps him on the shoulder before he can move back to his side of the stand. “I’m glad that you asked about her,” he says.

“Me too, dad.”

“I feel lighter somehow. I always avoided talking about her myself because I thought…I thought I might hurt you in some way…”

Suga’s heart swells inside his chest. “And I thought it might hurt _you_ , if I ever were to bring her up.”

_We were both so afraid for so long…_

“I should have asked sooner,” he whispers but his father shakes his head and waves his concern away. His guilt, this stubborn guilt that for one reason or another always seems to want to cling on him.

“No, you needed to ask when you were ready to listen to the answers.”

A woman catches both their eyes and points to a jewelry box sitting on their stand, the polished wood almost twinkling under the neon lights.

“I’m glad you are now.”

And with this his father lets him go, with one last pat on the shoulder. Suga makes his way to their new client and smiles his best smile. A smile that’s just his own.

_So am I, dad. So am I._

 

 

*

 

The kids wake up after 10, exhausted and ready to face-plant on their omelettes. In fact Daichi has to hold Ayame’s head up at one point to prevent her from getting egg all over her face.

It’s strange, usually on the week-ends they are so excited about the lack of school they come running in Daichi’s room and poke him until he wakes. Today they can barely keep their eyes open.

“Pass the soy, dad,” comes a slurred whisper from Ayame’s lips. Her gaze is fixed so intently on her plate in an attempt not to fall asleep again.

“Dear, the soy sauce is right next to you,” Daichi’s mom intervenes and gently drags the bottle of sauce till it’s nearly in Ayame’s eggs.

“Oh. Thanks, nana.”

Daichi watches her, then Kaede moving his vegetables around on the plate without eating them, and sits his glass on the table with a thud.

“Seriously what is it with you two this morning?” he asks, voice low as not to bother them. “Did you sleep badly? Is there something wrong with…I don’t know, with your mattresses? Don’t tell me Kinoshita-san’s dog was barking again because I swear I’m going to call the police on him-”

“No, dad, it’s not that,” Ayame says before Daichi can add more threats to the pile. “We were just…”

She looks at her brother, who gives her a sleepy nod. “We were thinking that we should do something for Suga-san’s birthday!”

“But I thought…you were going to do that frangiflower thing? I mean, didn’t we order it already and all that?”

Ayame rolls her eyes at him – _she rolls her eyes at him_ – and shares another look with Kaede, this time tinged with exasperation. Kaede goes as far as to shake his head.

Daichi flushes. “What? What did I say?”

His mother pats his hand gently and for a moment Daichi thinks that yes, maybe there is still a person left in this house who’s on his side, then she speaks. “Oh Daichi, you can really be quite dense, my child…”

“What- b-but I…”

“I think the kids meant they want to throw him a party or something, am I right?”

The kids nod.

“Yes! I mean, Suga-san basically did everything for my birthday-”

“Hey, I helped!”

“Sure, dad. As I was saying, Suga-san did a lot for my birthday and I think…I really want to do that too, for him. I want him to celebrate with us, all together.”

Ayame’s cheeks turn redder with every word and now Kaede is nodding along. He looks almost proud of his sister for speaking up. Ayame was never much a fan of emotional speeches and the likes, she hides behind her enthusiasm and her smile – in a way, a lot like Suga does himself – and Daichi is sure she spent quite some time thinking of all the things she wanted to say.

All for Suga.

Daichi nods at her words too but is careful to fix his eyes on a spot above her head as a weird, powerful wave of emotions hits him right in his middle, forcing the air out of his lungs.

He hadn’t realized…well, he knew how close the kids have grown to Suga, it’s so obvious in how they brighten up around him, the way they talk about him when he’s not here. What he hadn’t realized is how much the kids have grown since Suga came into their lives, how they’ve grown _because_ of Suga.

Kaede talks now, not too much but he talks more easily, in front of strangers as well. Ayame has become more open, more willing to share her real feelings and her time. She has slowed down, in a way, settled in herself, not as ready to lose herself in a whirlwind of activities and words just so she won’t have to listen to the worries and emotions she’s feeling deep down.

Suga…he has done all this, for them. And more, much more than Daichi can list.

“Dad, are you ok?”

“Daddy are you crying?”

“Oh goodness, Daichi, what’s wrong?”

Daichi shakes his head and laughs, a small, wet sound that can’t possibly be coming from him, seriously. “It’s nothing, I promise…”

“But I think you’re right, Ayame. Suga deserves a party.”

“A wild party!”

“No, that’s not what I meant-”

God help him did he speak too soon…

“We can brainstorm this later, alright? When we’ve all had a good nap and we are a little more clear-headed.”

Ayame huffs. “Alright, but nothing boring!”

_Nothing boring._

“Why did you stress that, my dear?”

“Because that’s your taste.”

His mother nearly chokes on her tea and Kaede turns his head toward the wall not to laugh in his father’s face.

“My taste is boring?”

“Yep.”

Daichi throws his napkin on the table and crosses his arms over his chest. “Do I have to remind you that I was the one who brought Suga here, uh? That I was the one who decided he was good enough to meet you two?”

“That just says you’re smart, dad. Doesn’t prove you’re not boring.”

“But I’m _not_ boring!”

“Look at what you’re wearing!”

Daichi looks at his soft grey – plain - T-shirt and black – plain - sweatpants. “What is wrong with these clothes? They are for inside the house!”

He shouldn’t have asked, that was a rookie mistake. Ayame spends the next five minutes telling him exactly what is wrong with his plain house clothes, then the next ten to diss his entire wardrobe.

Daichi listens with his face in his hands while his mother and son snicker. With his mind though, he’s still on the party. Ayame is right, it needs to be good, better than good, and really there’s only one solution that presents itself in Daichi’s brain, clear like a writing in the sky.

He needs to ask for help, to a person who knows Suga very, very well.

 

 

*

 

The rest of the day flies by. Suga stops to count the minutes just the time it takes him to make another sale and then as he’s smiling at the teenage girl walking away with a giddy grin on her face the sun catches his eyes through the tall windows of the market and it’s a warm, languid orange.

The sky is orange and pink and far away in the line of the horizon the blue of the night has already started to approach.

Suga’s stomach drops to his feet. He checks his phone. “Dad…”

His father turns to look at him and smiles. The edges of it though, are turned downwards.

They call one of his father’s friends, an enthusiast more than he is an artisan but the only person competent enough to manage the stand while dad is gone, and wait for him without speaking.

They walk to their car and sigh in unison as soon as they are seated.

“Off to get nana.”

“Yes.”

And so they go. Suga’s trolley and bag are already safe in the trunk and the backseats have been pulled down to make space for nana and her wheelchair. The train leaves at 19:00, a little more than 45 minutes from now.

“I’m coming down for your birthday, Koushi. I already bought the ticket,” his father says all of a sudden and he sounds earnest, encouraging. It takes a moment for Suga to realize dad is trying to reassure himself.

“I know.” He answers anyway.

He doesn’t want to leave any more than his father wants him to. Well, part of him doesn’t. The other cannot wait to get back to his kids. To Daichi.

Times before he didn’t have that. Tooru is from Miyagi too and when Suga leaves for home, Tooru usually always follows. Same with Taka. But now he’s got a reason to get back, to want to get back to Tokyo and it’s…weird, like he’s being cut in two.

Maybe this is what it feels like, when your home is not just one place.

Suga scratches his chest and finds his heart beating strong and steady beneath his fingertips.

He misses Onyx too, a lot. He’s never been this long away from her.

He has…a lot of things to come back to. For the first time they are nearly as big as the reasons that make him yearn to stay.

“Koushi…”

His father calls him and Suga attempts a smile. “What is it, dad?”

“You, um, you take care of yourself, ok?” he says and suddenly he’s the awkward man on the phone again, who can’t seem to express what he desperately wants to say.

Suga’s smile turns more honest. “I will, dad. But like you said, you’ll be coming down in less than two weeks.”

“Don’t get smart with me, kid.”

At the sound of his laughter his father finally cracks a smile too. Then just as quick it disappears and he turns somber again, fingers white around the steering wheel.

“Get my jacket from the back, will you, Kou?”

The line of his jaw is as tight as his grip, Suga thinks he might be grinding his teeth too.

He does as his father tells without asking.

“Now take my wallet, should be in the inside pocket.”

Suga takes it, feels the worn leather under his fingers, and opens it.

“Behind my ID.”

Behind his father’s ID, a picture that Suga almost drops to his feet.

It’s the three of them, smiling at the camera and dressed in heavy coats. There is snow on the ground, snow on his father’s hair and on Suga’s red hat. That on his mother’s head has mixed itself with the color of her hair, it’s impossible to make out. Suga can’t be older than two here, so it must have been Paris. The trees behind him give him no better clue that it might be a park.

He’s standing between his parents – _both_ _of_ _them_ – and they are kneeling to get on his level and all three of them are smiling so wide. Suga with cheeks as red as his hat, dimples everywhere and proudly showing his baby teeth, his father with a smile so euphoric, like Suga has never seen before, and his mother…

She looks so much like the woman in his dream, and yet completely different. She is light and lively here, only warmth emanating from her. How could that joy leave her so fast?

Suga finds no answers in her expression, in the sharp edges and curves of her face. She didn’t know either, probably. Maybe she was the first who couldn’t have predicted how her story – their story – would turn out. Maybe she was the most blindsided of them all.

The woman in the picture has nothing for him but a smile. Suga takes it and traces it with his fingertips. She has no dimples but for one in the middle of her cheek, nothing more than a long cut. He has her nose, even from this angle he can tell the shape is the same, small, pointy and slightly upturned at the tip. Her has her ears too, but the shape of their faces is not quite the same, in that his dream failed. Hers was longer.

Suga meets her eyes, smaller than his own, and his heart gives a painful tug.

“She really had blue eyes…”

His father chances a nervous look at him. “Yes, she did.”

Then, even more nervous, “Should I not have shown you-”

“No. No. This is…thanks, dad.”

Now he knows what to look for, in his dreams. On that carousel that never stops spinning.

“She looks happy.”

“She does.”

They take a sharp turn and nana’s house comes in sight.

“I…I have a few others. Of her, and your grandmother. Would you…I didn’t think to show them to you earlier but if you want I could bring some down…”

“Yes, I would like that.”

It’s time to face the past. The one he doesn’t remember, and the one that could have been. It’s time to face it all.

He can now.

“Hey, what are you two brooding for?”

His nana’s voice reaches their ears and they jump. Of course she was waiting for them in the middle of the sidewalk. Trust her not to lose even a single minute with the ‘’needless fusses you two would make, helping me out of every-bloody-where’’.

As soon as she meets Suga’s eyes in the rearview mirror though hers turn glassy with tears.

Throughout the rest of the drive she resists valiantly, almost imperceptible sniffs in her handkerchief, but once they are at the station, standing on the platform and waiting for Suga’s train she crumbles.

She hugs Suga so tight it’s hard for him to breathe and with every tear that shakes her Suga shakes too. In two minutes his shirt is already drenched at shoulder height.

“I’m gonna miss you so much…”

“Me too, nana.”

She holds his face in her hands and looks at him, brushes the hair away from his face. “I’ll miss your birthday…” she says and another tear falls.

Suga takes her hands in his and squeezes them. “I’ll come back as soon as I’m done with my thesis.”

“And when will that be?”

“August, that’s not far away.”

“You promise?”

“Yes, I promise it’s not far. There’s only July in between.”

She laughs a wet laugh and clouts him playfully – and gently – on the ear. “Alright, alright. I get it, I’m being too sentimental. Now go, you little minx, or I’m chaining you to my chair.”

Suga presses a kiss on her cheek and makes to stand.

“And good luck, baby,” she whispers in his ear as they move apart. “Not just on your studies.”

She winks and Suga knows what she’s talking about at once. Who she’s talking about. How could he have thought she didn’t noticed? This woman knows and notices everything.

He coughs and gives her an awkward nod, an awkward thank you.

Then he turns to his father, just as his train arrives in a chaos of noise.

“Koushi…”

Suga walks to him before he can say more and hugs him tight.

That’s all. Till the last call to board they do nothing else.

They were never good at goodbyes anyway.

 

 

*

 

Back in his bed finally, that bloody couch was really doing numbers on his back, Daichi watches the moon rise and color the world silver.

It’s a beautiful color. Daichi never paid much attention to it, to the thousands of ways it shines, a brilliance of its own, and valorizes everything around it but lately he’s…become quite fond of it.

He’s become fond of many things. Colors, sounds, feelings he perceives them with a clarity he never possessed before. It’s exhilarating.

In the quiet of the house he laughs and he doesn’t even know why. He passes a hand on his face and he feels foolish.

But tomorrow, once he comes home, he’ll find him again. Waiting, smiling. Making the kids laugh and turning this house a thousand times brighter.

Tomorrow, in just a few hours.

Daichi kicks the sheets away. He’s not in the mood to sleep right now, he’s not in the mood to be still.

He shakes his legs, hints a squat, does a bunch of push-ups, but even that is not enough to keep the buzzing of energy running through his veins in check. His skin is tingling and suddenly he wants to run. He can’t, though, he’s not lost his mind that much to forget he’s got two sleeping children in the house. So he sneaks past his bedroom door and walks downstairs. Makes himself some tea, turns on the TV just to fill the quiet.

He’s not even halfway through an episode of TORE! that he hears knocking on his door. He almost drops the remote in surprise and for a moment he stays still, looking at the front door like he expects it to explode or something.

_Who the hell knocks on a person’s door at past eleven in the night…_

He braces himself for another verbal fight with his across-the-street neighbor Kinoshita-san and marches to the door with a curse ready on his lips. He never gets to voice it though because when he looks into the peephole it gets stuck in his throat, along with the air he’s breathing. Oxygen catches on fire in his lungs.

He pulls the door open with so much force it squeaks, protests hard in his grip.

He doesn’t even notice.

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

Suga smiles at him, shy and…and happy. “Hi,” he says again, his voice so tender it causes Daichi to shiver. “I know it’s late but I…I don’t know, I just really wanted to see you.”

He colors with his words, and Daichi feels his cheeks heat too with a bone-deep kind of pleasure.

He nods. He can’t seem to find the words, any words that would fit in with this moment, with the way the moonlight is catching Suga’s hair.

Then Suga speaks again. “I asked him, about…about my mother.”

And his smile widens, becomes brighter and even more beautiful, if possible, more beautiful than anything Daichi has ever seen.

“I asked him, Daichi.”

And Daichi smiles back. Forces himself in motion.

 

 

*

 

All throughout the train ride Suga’s leg keeps moving, jittery and jumpy as he forces the rest of him to keep still. He’s stuck in the seat by the window, and the man sitting next to him keeps throwing annoyed looks his way from above the book he’s pretending to read.

Suga can’t help it though, he can’t help himself. He doesn’t know what’s gotten into him, why all of a sudden he’s so nervous to be back, but as soon as the doors of the train open he flies outside and barely notices the relieved sigh his neighbor gives.

He takes a step on the platform, then another. Sways on his feet like he’s testing the ground, preparing himself for a jump.

He looks around, at the station, at the people passing by and breathes, till his lungs are so full of air they could burst. He’s here, he’s in Tokyo. Again.

Tooru should be out at this time, celebrating another victory with his team. He had a game this morning, and of course he didn’t fail to send a report of all his awesome sets, perfect service aces and effective receives. Suga had just texted him quick congratulations between sales and promised he’d be a better audience when he got back.

That leaves Taka and Onyx. Taka usually only goes out when he doesn’t have class the next morning so he should be home, unless he went to study at one of his friends’ apartment. And Onyx, seeing as this is the first night without rain in a while she might be out hunting small, adorable living things. Sadly. But even if they were all home, throwing a welcome back party for him…that’s not where Suga wants to be right now. He sighs, breathes in the ugly Tokyo air, then he’s off. Running through the streets, with his trolley that keeps getting caught in manholes and his bag that bruises his hip, cuts deep into his shoulder.

He’s standing in front of the house before he even fully realizes he’s been moving at all. There’s a light, a faint blue light coming from the living room. Television.

Suga props the gate open with a perfectly timed twist and thrust of a bobby pin and stops by the front door. He knocks, he smiles. He’s here, right now, and his heart is a nervous mess in his chest.

But the sight of Daichi, real, before him, rumpled but not sleepy, only in a tank top and ratty shorts, is enough. It’s enough.

Suga breathes in again and smiles harder, wider. Thoughts become clear and suddenly he’s calm. He tells him, again and again. “I asked him about my mother.”

“I asked him, Daichi.”

And Daichi smiles back. He takes a step toward him, just one, and Suga finds himself, impossibly warm and real in his arms.


	21. The journey brings me you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The five stages of grief.

Daichi’s arms close around him and the warmth he gives engulfs Suga, seeps deep into his bones. It’s overwhelming and comforting and everything Suga didn’t think he needed right now.

“Hey,” Daichi murmurs in his ear and suddenly they are swaying, still on the front porch, still lost in time.

Suga doesn’t know how long it takes him, if a moment, that single word, or hours, surrounded by Daichi’s presence but at one point his smile disappears and in its place come tears. They fall on Daichi, wet his shirt and his bare skin and Suga shakes in his arms, against his body.

He’s kept it together for so long and now it’s forcing itself out of his body, this mixture of emotions volatile like the weather in the fall. Like water in a poorly glued together vase, first it spills one drop at the time, between the fractures in the glass, but with each drop that passes through the pieces give more and more away till they separate again, one by one, before the pressure of the water.

Suga breathes the air around them, that comes to him mixed with the smell of Daichi’s body wash, and lets it happen.

Daichi holds him tighter, strokes his hair. For hours, days, or less than a second because just as sudden the tears stop. Suga takes another deep breath and moves away, not much, just enough that he can look in Daichi’s eyes. He blinks the last of his tears away but stubborn ones still cling to his eyelashes. “I’m sorry,” he tries to say.

Daichi stops him before he can finish with a shake of his head. He reaches out to brush Suga’s hair away from his face but makes no move to help him dry his tears.

He takes Suga’s hand in his – warm and solid, just like the rest of him, and so wonderfully real – and leads them both inside. “You’re shivering,” he says and Suga follows his gaze, fixed on the goosebumps rising on his arms.

Suga hadn’t even noticed the wind rising cold from the sea.

They sit on the couch, still close, still touching, and Suga tells him everything, from start to finish till his mouth is dry and his throat is on fire.

“She loved us. I always told myself she didn’t, she couldn’t have if she left us, but she did, in her own way. As much as she could.”

He tells him about the picture, of the way his father still talks about her. He lists the things he takes after her, and of the day he ran away.

Daichi listens in silence until this moment. “It wasn’t your fault,” he says then, looking straight into Suga’s eyes and pulling him so close their noses are brushing together.

“I know,” Suga says back and never looks away.

And he does. He knows now.

He knows everything, yet nothing at all.

“I thought I’d find sure answers. I was ready for everything, I prepared myself to hear that my mother was a monster incapable of love, that she was a secret agent who didn’t want to endanger her family, that she was kidnapped by aliens even. I was expecting anything. I expected…something different than this.”

“But maybe there are no real answers. Maybe there are no real reasons, except that she didn’t want to stay.”

That’s the only reason she needed. It’s the only reason Suga needs.

Daichi sighs in his hair and leans back on the couch, taking Suga with him. “And you’re ok with that?”

Suga moves so he’s resting his cheek on Daichi’s shoulder and shrugs. “I think I am, I kind of have to be. But I’m…I don’t know, I thought I’d be angry, maybe I will be once everything has set and I’ve had time to process it but now I only feel sad for her.”

Daichi’s shirt is dry and stiff where Suga’s tears had fallen, only minutes ago. Sudden, like the wave of emotion that had nearly caused Suga’s knees to buckle – nearly but not quite, because he’s never stood so upright before – it had started and the same way it had stopped.

And now he’s calm once more. But he can’t know if it’ll last.

“I feel sad and…and relieved.”

A relief that has straightened his spine.

“She was such a sad person, Daichi. And she thought…she tried to fight it, with us. Getting married, having me, building a family she tried so hard to change herself, to…put this feeling behind and I think she managed for a while. I think she thought she had, but it was only because she had stopped paying attention to herself.”

“Dad told me that…that for a year after I was born she all but locked herself inside of the house just to take care of me. Then she got a job and it was better but once we moved back to Miyagi…again, she had no job to keep her occupied, no friends, no family. Only it was worse now because I was older, I didn’t need as much care.”

“And I think that’s when it hit her, that she wasn’t happy here, that she would never be happy here.”

Suga closes his eyes for a moment and tries to make sense of that smile, forever still, captured by the camera. He tries to make sense of the emotions, good and bad, merging into one inside his chest like paint on a palette. “She lost her mother so she went back to see if she could find some relief in the places they had lived, but even that didn’t work, apparently.”

“And I want to be mad at her for not coming back once she figured it out, I want to be mad at her for not trying harder, for giving up so fast but…”

He reaches out and grips the fabric of Daichi’s shirt, tight. Daichi covers his hand with his own, strokes his knuckles with unbearable tenderness.

“But the entire time I was sitting on that train I kept thinking about how it would have been, if she had stayed, or if she had gone but then come back and it was chilling. The idea of living in a house with someone who doesn’t want to be here, tiptoeing around them and seeing how resentful they grow of you. At least she left before that could happen.”

“At least she understood that if she had come back it would have only hit us harder each time she left again.”

He draws in a shallow breath. “It’s terrible to say, but maybe when she left, when she convinced herself that we’d be better off without her…maybe she wasn’t wrong.” His voice cracks, finally after all the strain, and Suga falls quiet, watches the way Daichi’s skin tone complements his own.

He opens his palm and as soon as he does Daichi interlaces their fingers together, brings their hands to his lips and kisses his wrist. “It’s not terrible,” he whispers against Suga’s skin and presses another kiss where Suga’s pulse has sped up.

_You are not terrible for thinking that, you are not terrible for saying that._

Suga sighs and keeps his thanks unvoiced.

Being grateful for not having had to suffer more doesn’t make him a terrible person. He is not a terrible person, just like he wasn’t a terrible son. And hearing that, knowing that, makes it so much easier to breathe.

Why? Because Suga _had_ a good life, all things considered. It was harder than most kids’ it was messier and full of doubts, of insecurities and deeply rooted guilt but it was good because even through their tense silences when thoughts turned to her his father had always made sure to love him enough for two. Quiet and constant and evident in everything he did.

His nana took care of him, she yelled at teachers when she found out Suga was made fun of, she took time every afternoon to teach him everything she knew, from the most basic domestic jobs – “My grandson is not going to grow up one of those helpless men who don’t even know how to turn on a stove!” – to the truths she discovered in living for as long as she has.

And it might not have been this way if his mother had chosen to stay.

His father might have found it harder to show Suga his love if his mother had been here, angry and stiffened, poisoning the air with the seething need to get away. Suga might not have had the opportunity to grow so close to his nana, learn from her, because she and his mother were not fond of each other long before his mother left.

And thinking of it this way, thinking of a world where he and his father don’t understand each other’s quiet, of a world where his and nana’s banters are stiff with unfamiliarity is unbearable.

_This_ is the only thing Suga is certain of, right now. The only _feeling_ he can make out.

Daichi lays their joined hands on his chest and Suga feels his heart beat – steady, and strong - beneath his fingertips.

Well, _this_ and something else…

He looks up into Daichi’s eyes again.

_I love you._

“Should I move?” he asks instead and he doesn’t know why.

His side is pressed against Daichi’s, his cheek is resting on Daichi’s shoulder. He can feel every breath Daichi takes, the beating of his heart. His bare skin against his. Suga never wants to move.

Why did he ask?

Maybe just so he could hear the answer.

Daichi passes an arm around his waist and pulls him even closer, till Suga is almost on him. He kisses Suga’s brow. “Absolutely not.”

They fall quiet. Surrounded by the warmth of Daichi’s body Suga’s eyes close and he falls into a deep, dreamless sleep.

 

He wakes in soft, blue bed sheets to the sun shining timidly into his eyes.

He blinks and rolls on the other side of the bed with a huff, stubbornly closes his eyes again chasing sleep that won’t return. Then, slowly, realization comes. His bed in Miyagi doesn’t face the window. And his room in Meiji doesn’t have clean, white walls, let alone fancy curtains that reach the floor.

Suga opens his eyes again, wide and alarmed, and looks around himself. White walls, heavy furniture, sleek and modern, carved into dark woods. Files on the nightstand and an old-fashioned digital alarm clock. A beautiful navy blue jacket hanging from the knob of a large closet.

He’s in Daichi’s bedroom, this much is obvious.

He’s in Daichi’s bedroom but more than that he’s in Daichi’s bed. All obvious facts, what really isn’t obvious is how the hell he got here.

He looks under the sheets – he somehow climbed up the stairs, got into Daichi’s room, in his bed and under his sheets, all without realizing? – and ok, yes, he has clothes on.

Not that he expected…of course he didn’t…he would have remembered _that_ , if that had happened – oh boy, he would have remembered - which is obviously not the case, because he’s dressed and he’s not...satisfied. Not to mention he’s not sore anywhere, which suggests he didn’t do anything straining and of course he didn’t because he and Daichi don’t do that.

A little voice in his head – that sounds suspiciously like Tooru – tells him to add a ‘yet’ at the end of that sentence.

_Oh, for crying out loud…_

He’s giving himself a headache.

This is why mornings should be banned.

Suga sits up in the bed – Daichi’s bed, that still smells of him – and covers his face with his hands.

His mother, he asked his father about her. He took the train, he came here. He told Daichi everything and Daichi was…well, he was Daichi. Wonderful, sweet.

He fell asleep in his arms and oh, how good it had felt, to finally be able to do that…

But then? Did Daichi wake him and walk him to his bed, because he’s a charming idiot who’s too charming and too idiotic to take the bed for himself even though if he had he wouldn’t have had to wake Suga and make him move upstairs?

That sounds plausible. Daichi has proved several times that he was created in a Disney lab by accident while scientists were looking for the perfect formula to create the perfect fairytale prince.

Wow, this might just be the most thinking Suga has ever done in his life so early in the morning.

Thankfully it comes to a sudden halt when the sound of steps pitty-pattering on the hardwood floors reaches his ears. It stops right before his door – well, technically it’s Daichi’s door but whatever - and soon it’s joined by not so quiet whispers.

“Daddy said we shouldn’t wake him!”

Suga’s heart expands at the sound of that voice.

_Kaede…_

“Daddy says a lot of things, Dede. Do you really think I listen to them all?”

_Good God, Ayame…_

Suga slaps a hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter. He’s missed these kids so much these past few days, now that they are so close he aches to hold them in his arms. He’s about to get up and do just that, but another familiar voice joins the others and he decides to wait and listen in a little bit more.

“What are you two doing? You didn’t even finish breakfast!”

“We want to see Suga-san!” they say in chorus, loud and enthusiastic.

Daichi shushes them and they apologize, still in chorus though, and still too audible.

“Ok, I’m gonna go in and leave this on the nightstand. You two stay here, and quiet!”

The doorknob twists and clicks. Suga passes a quick hand through his hair and arranges the sheets around him like an ample gown.

Daichi appears by the door, in the same clothes as last night and just as adorably rumpled, carrying a tray full of food and looking like a dream come true.

Their eyes meet and Suga’s heart skips a beat.

“You’re awake.”

Daichi grins at him, crooked and a little embarrassed, and it skips two. “Y-yeah, um…”

_You weren’t exactly being quiet_ , he wants to say but the words come out too fast, fall into each other losing every meaning.

“Hi,” is all that makes sense and Daichi’s smile turns wider.

“Hi.”

“He’s awake, Dede!” Ayame’s voice breaks the wall of sound and suddenly Daichi is shoved aside by two resolute pairs of hands.

“Hey!”

“Sorry, dad,” Kaede throws behind him. Ayame doesn’t even bother, too busy jumping on the bed and in Suga’s arms in three long steps.

“Suga-san!”

“Ayame!”

“Wait for me!”

Suga presses a loud kiss on Ayame’s cheek and hugs her tight with one arm. The other he opens for Kaede to fall into.

“I missed you so much,” he whispers when they are both there, holding onto him tight and hiding their faces in the crook of his neck. “So, so much.”

He noses at their hair, the wonderful, bubbly smell of children’s shampoo fills his nostrils and his chest tightens with all the emotions he’s feeling at once. He presses one, two, three kisses on the top of his children’s heads, on their cheeks, on their temples.

And they let him. They giggle and grip his shirt tight in their hands and move in even closer.

“I missed you too, Suga-san…”

“Me too, so much!”

“So dramatic, he was only gone for three days!”

Daichi walks into the room at last and sets the tray on the nightstand. Then he sits on the end of the bed and watches them with the warmest eyes.

“Daddy says that but he was moping all week-end!” Kaede fake-whispers in Suga’s ear and Suga raises his eyes just in time to see Daichi gape, color spreading fast on his neck.

“I- I was _not_!”

(Denial.)

The smug grin that flashes on Kaede’s face is both hilarious and mildly terrifying.

“You were too!”

“I was not!”

“You were too!”

“Men are so childish,” Ayame interjects distractedly, still wrapped in Suga’s arms and now busy combing her fingers through the mess that is his hair.

Kaede puts an end to his staring contest with Daichi to respond in kind. “ _You_ are the childest person in the world, Aya!”

Then he stops and thinks about his sentence. “Childishest. Childer…”

“Suga-san how does that go?”

“See? Childish!”

Daichi opens his mouth to scold her but Suga is already on it, pinches Ayame’s cheek – gently – to get her attention and fixes her with a stern look. “Asking for help is not childish, Ayame. It’s actually a very mature thing to do, your brother showed that he’s more interested in improving than he is into other people’s judgment and that’s really, really mature.”

From the corner of his eye Suga sees Daichi smile, again the soft, wonderful smile he was wearing earlier.

“Ah-ah! See, Aya?”

“This, on the other hand, was definitely _not_ mature, Kaede…”

“Oh…”

Kaede deflates and Suga jerks his chin in his direction, a clear exhortation for Ayame to say those words. Ayame nods at him and taps her brother on the shoulder. “Sorry, Dede, I shouldn’t have made fun of you.”

She takes a deep breath and under everyone’s surprised gaze she continues, “I’m your big sister, I’m the one who needs to act more her age to give a good example to you.”

Kaede blinks at her and for a moment he keeps quiet, too shocked to speak. Then he clears his throat and says to his feet “’s alright, a fun sister is better than a serious sister who acts all like a grown-up. Masa-chan has a big sister like that and she’s…what’s that word when you can’t stand someone, Suga-san?”

“I-insufferable?”

“Yeah, and you…you are not insufferable, Aya,” he concludes, still looking down and fidgeting with the hem of his pajama top.

Suga and Daichi gape at them, then share a look between themselves. They reach out at the same time and first they pinch, respectively, Ayame and Kaede, then they pinch each other.

“Ow!”

“Why did you-”

“Ok that hurt.”

“Why did you do that?”

Daichi shrugs and Suga with him. “You were acting so mature we thought maybe we were dreaming…”

Ayame rolls her eyes. “You see, it’s not our fault, Dede. How can _we_ be mature if our parents are not?”

Kaede nods at his sister’s words, but Suga and Daichi have to bite their lips not to burst out laughing. Neither of them notices the word Ayame used, to neither of them it sounds wrong.

“Alright, alright, now you two get off Suga. If we keep this up we’ll never get you to school in time.”

Daichi lifts Ayame and sends her out of the room with a playful shove.

Ayame, though, is not one to leave without a fight. “Can’t we just stay here for today?”

“Absolutely not, Suga is not an excuse to skip school.”

“No, although I do try to bring the party wherever I go.”

“What?”

“Party, holiday…oh whatever just leave it alone.”

Daichi shrugs and follows Ayame outside to make sure she starts getting ready.

“I got your joke, Suga-san!”

Suga picks Kaede up and puts him down off the bed, even though Kaede is big and old enough to jump off it with no problem at all.  “Of course you did, you are a smart cookie!”

“Unlike dad.”

“Yes, unlike dad.”

“What was that?” Daichi appears again, a terrifying smile on his face and Kaede runs out of the room to escape his ire.

As soon as he’s gone though, Daichi’s expression changes. He closes the door, just enough for the bed not to be in line of sight from the hallway but not so much that the sounds of the house are muffled, and makes his way to Suga.

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

Alone like this, the moments they shared last night hit Suga full force. Like all the things he’d said, the things he’s found out. A small weight settles in his chest, but it’s nothing compared to the warmth he still feels.

Daichi takes the tray from where it was sitting, forgotten, on the nightstand and places it on the bed. “You better eat this before it gets too cold…”

He’s rubbing the back of his neck with a hand and he’s even blushing a little, he’s probably only just realized just how much ‘this’ is. Crepes with chocolate and mascarpone sauce, an apple already sliced and covered in cinnamon powder and icing sugar, strong, black coffee and too many fruits to count. Raspberries, blueberries, a banana served on a little plate with whipped cream. A croissant.

By the corner of the tray there’s a milk bottle with a flower inside. One of the roses from the garden.

Daichi catches Suga staring at it and blushes even harder. “T-That was Kaede’s idea, I swear.”

“I kind of figured…”

The more he sees, the more Suga convinces himself that Kaede might be up to something. Or onto something, Suga doesn’t know which is worse.

“Well, at least it’s not a red rose…” he tries to joke but all it does is cause Daichi to sputter.

Ok, change of subject…

Suga takes a bite of the crepe and hums in approval.

“Good?”

“Yeah, really…”

It’s almost as good as the ones his nana makes, and that’s saying something. “You really know your way around the kitchen, Sawamura.”

“As long as it’s not baking, though.”

“As long as it’s not baking,” Suga agrees, and hands Daichi a slice of apple. “Have you eaten something? No, because I’m telling you I can’t finish this…”

“Yeah, I ate something,” Daichi answers with his mouth full.

Suga gives him just enough time to swallow, then feeds him a slice of his crepe. “Come on, help me with this.”

So they eat, shoulder to shoulder, Daichi mostly with his hands because there are no spare cutleries.

“Hey, I said ‘help me’ not ‘eat it all’ you animal!”

“Shut up, this is only fair after all the food you’ve stolen from my plate these past few months!”

They burst out laughing and Suga nearly chokes on his banana. The joke makes itself.

When he tells Daichi that, Daichi howls.

“Oh my God, Ayame was right. We really are two over-grown children!”

“You are! Look at you, you can’t even eat right!”

Daichi reaches out and thumbs at the dip of Suga’s upper lip, where some whipped cream has smeared. He lingers for a moment too long, and the tips of his fingers skim over Suga’s mouth, its edges, the full bottom lip. Suga’s breath breaks on his skin.

As their eyes meet Daichi swallows, then he moves away.

“I could stay…” he says. His words are sure, his voice a little too deep.

“What?”

“I mean today, I could stay with you if you…if you need me, or something. For company.”

Suga smiles and takes another sip of his coffee. He can’t look at him right now, he can’t. If he does he knows he’ll be too tempted to give up on today, hide beneath these sheets that smell like Daichi, and now a little bit of him, and spend the whole day doing nothing but look at him till his eyes tire out. And he can’t afford to do that. “It’s ok. I have a meeting with my advisor later, so even if I…I mean, I can’t stay myself…”

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot about your meeting.”

“Besides, I’m…I’m alright.”

It sounds true when he says it, but doesn’t feel just as sincere.

And Daichi catches it, the subtle difference. Somehow he always understands. “Are you really?”

_Am I really?_

“I don’t know.”

“Suga, it’s ok if you’re not, I mean finding out after all these years, I’d be shaken too…”

Shaken. That’s right. That’s how he should feel.

“But this is the thing, I don’t _feel_ shaken!”

The more he talks, the more he realizes. A whole day has passed, why…why is he not _reacting_? “I’m not…shattered or unsettled, the ground beneath my feet has never felt more solid, and I…I can’t make sense of it.”

“Maybe you haven’t fully realized it all yet…”

“Maybe.”

Maybe. But he was waiting for the storm. He was waiting for the anger to explode like wildfire in his veins, he was waiting for the earthquake, destabilizing all his certainties, all the things he always took for granted but instead he’s…present, clear-headed. He’s himself.

“Or maybe I’m just…colder than I thought.”

Unfeeling. Emotionally unavailable.

He heard that last one, several times, from his exes.

_“You hide behind your smile, and how kind you are but you never give yourself away, you don’t even let me take a peek into your brain!”_

_“This thing is never going to work if you keep everything inside!”_

_“We have been together for months and I feel like I don’t know you at all!”_

Maybe they were more right than Suga had thought.

Maybe he tried so hard to repress his true feelings, the good like the bad, that now he has effectively anesthetized himself to them. To anything he can’t rationalize.

A hand touches the inside of his arm, rises to cup his cheek. “Suga…”

His insides quiver.

_But that wouldn’t explain this…_

He meets Daichi’s eyes, already fixed in his.

“Maybe…Suga, maybe that just means you’re healing.”

_Healing._

What he couldn’t manage to do all these years, because how can you heal when you don’t even know the root of your illness. His mother leaving, it’s something he made peace with years ago. He lived his whole life without her, he dealt with the consequences of her actions – her one, defining action – for 22 years.

What he couldn’t live with was not knowing why. The fear of hurting his father if he asked, of hurting himself and the equilibrium they created. The fear of hearing that it was all his fault. Hating himself for not being strong enough to ask.

And the thousand scenarios he made up over the years, one worst than the other, the dreams where she wouldn’t listen, where she wouldn’t answer to any of his questions. It was a vicious cycle and Suga couldn’t make peace of it.

But now…now he can. Now he finally has a chance to.

“ _Daichi…_ ”

He tugs at the collar of Daichi’s shirt and rests his forehead against his as laughter shakes him, he clings on to him like he’d done last night on the couch. Only now no tears soak Daichi’s shirt.

Daichi murmurs his name and circles his frame with his arms while Suga giggles, a little hysterical maybe but relieved, so unbelievably light. It could only end this way, this rollercoaster of emotion that have been the past 24 hours, making a fool of himself in Daichi’s arms.

But Daichi doesn’t seem to mind. He’s not looking at him like he’s crazy, he’s not worried, he’s not touching him like Suga’s bones have suddenly turned into glass.

He’s holding him tight, and his eyes are soft like his smile and Suga loves him with every fiber of his being.

Suga loves him.

And just like that the laughter dies down. He hugs Daichi back and closes his eyes, cheek to cheek with him as if they were slow-dancing.

In a way they are, they have been slow-dancing for a while. Learning each other’s rhythm, memorizing the steps, trying to move in sync.

Have they succeeded?

“Daddy? Suga-san?”

Kaede appears, head poking timidly around the door, and the question goes unanswered. Daichi and Suga move apart but not soon enough, not fast enough.

Kaede is grinning one of his rare, toothy smiles.

“W-what is it, baby?”

“I can’t find my shoes.”

“Which ones?”

“The blue and green…”

“I’ll help you look for them, just…just give me a second.”

Kaede nods and leaves, still with that impossibly pleased smile on his face. Daichi stands to follow but he keeps rearranging the sheets, tugging at imaginary lints on the fabric.

Finally, after what seems like hours he moves away and makes to the door.

Suga yawns in his cupped hand  and all of a sudden he’s reminded that, yes, he only just woke up. After a long, draining day. He stretches his limbs, stiff and heavy. He passes a hand through his hair to give it a semblance of some kind of order and only when he turns again he realizes Daichi is still in the room, staring at him like he’s just seen a ghost.

Alright, maybe not a ghost, but he does have a weird expression on his face, kind of like he’s having a déjà-vu.

Suga looks down at himself, at the wrinkled clothes he’s been wearing since yesterday morning, the blue bed sheets tangled around one of his calves and blushes. “Why, um, why are you looking at me like that?”

Daichi blinks at him, he hesitates.

He’s probably thinking of a nice way to tell him he looks like a fucking mess. God, Suga doesn’t even want to think of the state of his hair, his face…

“You’re beautiful,” Daichi says at last and now it’s Suga’s turn to gape, to be caught completely blindsided.

Heat rises to his cheeks and his heart – his poor, exhausted heart – jumps so sudden in his chest, so strong it feels like it’s looking for a way out of him. “I…thank you.”

Daichi shrugs, embarrassed but not too much, not shy or uncertain. He’s looking Suga straight in the eyes, like he wants to make sure Suga knows he meant it.

Suga knows he did, Daichi rarely says things he doesn’t mean.

“There’s a spare bathrobe in the bathroom cabinet, and clean towels under the sink in case you want to take a shower…”

Suga nods and stands on sure feet.

Kaede’s voice reaches them from the other end of the hallway and Daichi winces, hurries to him. The shoes, right.

Suga hugs his middle and walks to the bathroom. His hands are shaking as he undresses, it’s Daichi’s private bathroom, Daichi’s shower he’s stepping in. His stomach is in knots.

He waits for the water to get as hot as he can stand, steaming, and gets underneath the spray. He washes himself with Daichi’s body wash, the smell he’s come to love so much, and sighs at how silly this all is.

He’s been called beautiful before, by strangers on the streets, by Tooru a bunch of times – almost always followed by a teasing ‘’but not as much as me’’ – and of course by all of his exes at one point in the relationship – mostly the beginnings let’s be honest – and it’s nice, of course it’s always felt nice but when Daichi is the one who says it’s…different. It feels real and honest and Suga believes it.

It’s heady.

“You are a fucking loser, Sugawara Koushi,” he tells to himself in the loneliness of the shower cabin.

This too feels real and honest.

 

As soon as he’s done he wraps the bathrobe around himself, tight, he even does a double knot, and steps out of the bathroom on the tips of his feet.

He looks through his trolley, that Daichi had kindly taken upstairs while he was in the shower, and mentally thanks Tooru for telling him to pack extra clothes – extra underwear, extra pairs of jeans, extra shirts – and for folding them all so neatly at the bottom. The clothes Suga had worn during the week-end are a mess at the top, Suga had tried folding them too but they clearly didn’t survive the train ride, but Suga only needs to move them away and dig a little to find a perfectly clean, wrinkle-free outfit.

Thank God.

Tooru is getting cupcakes today, it’s decided.

Just as he’s about to undo his robe the door clicks open.

“Um, Suga?”

He closes the robe with a quick tug and hugs his clothes to his chest like a shield. “Y-yes?”

“School starts in twenty minutes and I kind of need to get dressed too?”

“Oh, yes of course, just one second!”

Suga nearly trips in his haste to get into his boxers, but once he’s put a hand on the chest near him it’s smooth sailing. He smoothes the fabric of his jeans, the folds that always appear by the knees, fixes his shirt so the collar won’t bother him and opens the door for Daichi to come in.

“I’m sorry, I made you all lose so much time…”

“It’s alright, really.”

He closes his trolley, his clothes now a complete mess inside, and takes it out with him. Then a thought occurs to him and he stops. “Hey, Daichi?”

“Yeah?”

He already has his tank top over his head. Suga aggressively focuses on a spot on the wall so he won’t follow the dark trail of hair that disappears in the waistband of his shorts.

“H-how,um,” he clears his throat, tries again, “how did I end up here? I mean, I know I fell asleep downstairs on the couch but I don’t remember waking up and…”

Daichi blushes and it’s an answer in itself. With the hand not carrying the trolley Suga covers his eyes.

“Please, _please_ tell me you didn’t carry me here.”

“O-ok, I won’t tell you then.”

“But _that’s_ what happened.”

A pause, then “Yes.”

_Oh God._

“Oh God.”

Daichi takes a step toward him and raises his palms, a reassuring expression on his face. Well, it would be reassuring if he weren’t so clearly mortified. “It’s alright, you…you are pretty light.”

“That’s so not the point!”

_I’m a Disney princess. I have officially become a Disney princess._

 “Oh.”

Daichi looks behind his shoulders, to the king size bed, and his eyes turn comically wide. “Oh, no, I-I swear I slept on the couch.”

“What?”

“I didn’t, we didn’t…I carried you here, then I went back downstairs. We didn’t sleep,”-  _together_ \- “I would never…”

Daichi thinks that’s what Suga is worried about.

Obliviously charming idiot.

Like he would have minded it, getting to wake up to him.

Suga shakes his head but he’s smiling once again. “I know you did, you are _Daichi_ after all.”

Daichi blinks at him, he doesn’t understand. “And that’s…a good thing?”

“That’s the best thing.”

He leaves Daichi to open and close his mouth like an adorable koi fish and shuts the door behind him.

 

They make it with five minutes to spare to Kaede’s school and for the skin of their teeth to Ayame’s.

They are panting when they get to the gate, well Suga is panting, Daichi and Ayame’s breath is only slightly hitched, and all they can do is exchange quick kisses and a wave before Ayame has to hurry inside.

“See you later, Suga-san?”

“Of course.”

“Be good, baby.”

“I always am. Bye!”

Then it’s just the two of them again. They share a look.

“I hate that you are not even a little out of breath.”

Daichi throws his head back and laughs. “Guess I need to take you out jogging more regularly!”

Suga groans. “Oh, please no. There are killer ducks out to get us!”

“That’s only in one park, I’m sure the ducks in other parks don’t hate us.”

“Don’t hate _you_ , Sawamura. I got nothing to do with that, I’m just an innocent bystander who picked the wrong company…”

Daichi tugs at the hem of his shirt to pull him closer. “Innocent is the last word I’d use to describe you.”

They smile at each other, for God knows how long, until they are interrupted by a pointed cough. They jump and move apart under Nobu-san’s contemptuous gaze.

“Hello, Sawamura-san. Sugawara.”

Sugawara. Not Suga-kun anymore.

(Anger.)

_Thank God._

“Good morning, Nobu-san.”

“Morning.”

Nobu-san passes them by, walks between them forcing them apart, and Suga has to bite his lip not to throw him a curse.

_Fucking asshole._

He can still think it though.

Then he sighs. The clock high by the roof of the school signals three minutes to eight, it’s really time to go.

Daichi rocks on the ball of his feet, chews on the inside of his cheek. He’s noticed the time too and he seems just as unwilling to part ways as Suga is. “I could walk you to the station…” he offers.

Suga shakes his head. “No, you’d be late to work.”

Daichi begins to say something, probably a protest, a ‘it doesn’t matter’ but then he thinks better of it. “You’re right.”

They share another smile.

“Thank you,” Suga says.

_I love you._

“Don’t even mention it.”

_I love you._

He walks away, toward the station, on the opposite direction Daichi is headed and until he turns the corner he can feel the wonderful weight of Daichi’s eyes on him.

 

Suga comes to a quiet apartment. He steps inside and only the squeaking of the floor under his shoes can be heard, bouncing on the walls oppressed by silence.

Onyx peeks her head from the back of the couch, where she was napping using Tooru’s jacket as blanket, and as soon as she sees him she jumps down and runs to him. Suga leaves the trolley by the door, drops his bag on the ground and kneels to take Onyx in his arms.

“Oh, here’s my baby love,” he mutters when she meows, loud and indignant at him. “I missed you so much.”

She fixes him with a stern look, as if to say ‘if you had taken me with you you wouldn’t have’, but Suga bumps his nose with hers and she melts. She meows again, this time softer, and rubs her precious face against his, with almost aggressive possessiveness.

“Yeah, I know, I know. Me too.”

“I thought I’d heard voices.”

Suga looks up from Onyx’s fur and smiles at Tooru, the outline of a shadow down the hallway. Jeez, why is the place so dark? Then Tooru walks into the light of the living room and the reason becomes all too clear. Suga’s smile dies down in an instant.

“Hey, Kou-chan. Welcome back.”

Tooru attempts a genial grin but it’s just muscle memory, this smile. His eyes are circled black, a dull brown now that they are not lit with mischief, or amusement or…any kind of feeling, really, that isn’t exhaustion. He’s still in his pajamas, the blue ones with planets that Suga got him for his 22nd birthday, eons ago.

Tooru is still in his pajamas at 8:30 in the morning.

Suga gives Onyx one last scratch behind the ear and puts her down on the floor. Without a word he points to the couch and Tooru sits with a sigh that is defeated and relieved at the same time.

He’s been waiting for Suga. Probably didn’t sleep a wink.

And Suga only got here now.

Fuck.

“We won the game last night,” is what Tooru starts with.

Suga puts aside his guilt and listens.

He sits on the opposite end of the couch to look at him, but Tooru keeps his gaze on the wall in front of him so he’s only showing his profile. His eyes are covered by the temples of his glasses.

As if that could be enough to hide his hurt from the person he’s been living with for eight years.

But Suga lets him. God knows he’s used all these kinds of tricks too before.

“Yeah, I saw your texts.”

“Mmm, it was a good game. Easy even.”

Tooru chews the inside of his cheek. Suga inches closer.

“Ushiw-Ushijima didn’t miss a toss.”

“I see. Was Hajime there?”

“Yes.”

Yes. Tooru’s voice had trembled just now, on this yes.

“We went out to celebrate. Hajime came too, of course. Everyone was there, the team, friends, some friends of friends, girlfriends…We went to that big ramen place near the arcade, you know? The one with the squid on the board?”

Suga nods. Tooru continues. “It was nice, I thought it was nice, except Hajime was kind of quiet.”

Hajime, not Iwa-chan. _Hajime_.

It’s worse than Suga had initially thought.

“Ushijima and I, we were on opposite ends of the table and I swear, Koushi, I didn’t look at him once.”

Suga nods again, but they both know it’s a lie. When they are in a room together, those two can never look away for too long.

“But when Hajime and I got here he started going all ‘’that guy couldn’t take his eyes off you’’ and ‘’I see the way you two play together’’ like what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You know what that means, Tooru.”

The trust Tooru and Hajime shared on the court was something everyone could see. Even as their opponent, every time Karasuno and Seijoh faced off, Suga would look at them and feel ugly, seething envy churn his stomach. Because in the years he’d played he’d never found what those two had.

And now, now that Tooru is here, at Meiji…he’s managed to find something just as extraordinary. Without Hajime. And it’s not the same, it could never be the same, but the chemistry Tooru and Ushijima have on court is explosive. It’s not the unwavering trust, knowing each other inside out as players, as men, it’s pure electricity.

Tooru knows it, Suga knows it, and Hajime knows it. He saw it. And he’s terrified of it.

“I told him that nothing happened between us since he and I got back together but he wouldn’t listen. I told him that it’s just a few months before I graduate, I told him that now I’m ready to make a commitment to something that is not volleyball…”

(Bargaining.)

“But he wouldn’t listen to that either.”

Suga reaches out and puts a hand on Tooru’s shoulder.

Tooru turns to look at him and his eyes are blazing with fury, dark with sadness.

“Did you two…?”

“No.”

Hesitation, grinding of teeth.

“But he said he needs to think about this. About…about us.”

“Oh, Tooru…”

Tooru attempts another smile but it’s even weaker than the other, even faker. So he gives up. He moves close to Suga, down on the sofa till he’s resting his head in Suga’s lap and his face is open now, tense with the sadness he’s feeling.

Suga wanted to tell him everything today. All the things his father had said to him about his mother, but now it’s not the time. Now is not the day.

He cards his fingers through Tooru’s hair, pulls his glasses off so they won’t bother him, and stays perfectly still till it’s time for his meeting. Tooru has fallen asleep by then, he moves him off of him carefully and presses a kiss on his temple.

When he comes back a couple of hours later, more notes scribbled in his thesis but the end finally in sight, Tooru is still sleeping, he doesn’t seem to even have stirred.

Suga sits back on the couch, on the other end this time, and with Tooru’s legs in his lap he edits the newest chapters of his thesis, begins to plan the conclusion.

 

The day progresses slowly, calm like almost none of his days ever are.

He and Tooru eat lunch together and snuggle until it’s time for Tooru to get to practice. He says goodbye with a quick kiss on Suga’s lips and glares at Onyx when he notices the hair she left on his jacket.

This alone is enough to make Suga hope that maybe, maybe Tooru is going to be fine. Again, like all the other times before.

“I love you,” he mutters in Suga’s ear and then he’s gone, without waiting for an answer.

Doesn’t matter, really, it’s an answer he already knows.

“It’s just us now…” Suga tells Onyx, who wasted no time taking place on his lap as soon as Tooru freed it. She purrs beneath his palm and he wonders how he resisted three whole days without her.

He looks outside the window, to the sparse clouds lost in the pale blue of the sky.

“What do you say we go pick up Kaede together?”

Onyx meows and just like that it’s settled. The kids are going to love it.

 

“MISS ONYX!”

The kids love it.

Kaede actually squeals when he sees Suga with the carrier in his hand and his teacher and classmates all stare at him, walking out of the classroom, like they can’t believe their eyes.

Suga can’t either.

“Miss Onyx!”

Ayame is no better, but from her Suga expected it. She insists on being the one to take the carrier, initially she wanted to let Onyx out so she could walk around the streets with her on the shoulder – “Like a pirate but cooler!” – but thankfully Suga managed to talk her out of that one. And she is surprisingly careful with it, making sure no one bumps into it, not jostling it too much.

Onyx rubs her face on her calf as soon as they are home and she’s out of her cage.

“Aw, miss Onyx!”

Even with their favourite anime on they can’t seem to take their eyes off of her.

“Suga-san you need to bring her more often!” Ayame tells him, read: orders him, as she and Kaede walk around the living room dragging threads on the floor to see which one Onyx will follow.

Onyx is both delighted and overwhelmed. Tries to grab them both at the same time and jumps ten feet in the air when one of the threads somehow falls right on her head.

They all laugh.

“We’ll see about that, alright? Now come eat your onigiri.”

“They are shaped like pandas!”

The kids eat three each and still a few are left. Suga puts them in the fridge, for Daichi to eat in case he’s hungry when he gets back.

“Does Miss Onyx eat onigiri?” Kaede asks at one point.

“No, I don’t think she cares too much for rice.”

“Oh…”

Suga looks down, where Kaede’s eyes are fixed, and sure enough there are white grains on the floor.

“Then what does she eat?”

Suga smirks. “The mice she hunts, mostly.”

“Ew!”

With her around Suga doesn’t even need to come up with games they can play. For two hours he just sits on the couch and watches the kids pet Onyx, coo at Onyx, smile at Onyx. If this were a movie he’d pay each night to go see it, it’s a sight for his weary eyes.

“I want an Onyx too!”

“You mean you want a cat?”

“Well yeah, but I want one just like Miss Onyx!”

The Miss in question licks his palm in thanks – Suga swears this cat understands every word they are saying – and leaps in Suga’s arms for a quick snuggle.

As much as she revels in the attentions the kids are giving her she’s also very much not used to it. Poor darling looks tired.

“I’m afraid you won’t be able to find a cat just like her, Kaede-kun.”

She purrs, a clear agreement.

Kaede pouts. “Really, no?”

“Well, you see, every cat is different. They are like people, you won’t find two people who are exactly like each other…”

“What about clones?” Ayame interjects and comes to sit on the ground near Suga’s legs to brush Onyx’s tail.

“Well, clones are supposedly made by copying someone’s genetic material so they look alike but I really don’t think that’s enough to transfer all of a person’s – or even an animal’s - behavior, personality traits, reactions…”

“Temperament is shaped by past experiences, by the environment, by the people you grow with…I mean, how can you make an exact replica of a single person’s life experience?”

His mother leaving. How many people were…abandoned by their mothers?

Many, he expects but how many were lucky enough to have the father he has? How many of them avoided talking about it for years, made up stories in their heads that somehow ended all with it being their fault? How many of them don’t even remember the sound of her voice, how many of them hid in a sea of red flowers to escape the questions that tormented them?

(Depression.)

“It’s impossible,” he deadpans.

Then he remembers where he is, who he’s talking to and shrugs in what he hopes looks like a casual manner. “A-and that goes for animals too, I think?”

“I don’t know all the words you just used right now, Suga-san, but I think I get what you mean,” Ayame says and smiles at him, almost in reassurance.

“Yeah, me too,” Kaede confirms.

“So Onyx is one of a kind?” she asks, still brushing Onyx’s fur and with a pink bow in her other hand. She gently places it around Onyx’s neck, attached to her thin, plain black collar.

Onyx doesn’t seem to mind, or even notice really, busy as she is licking her paw.

Suga scratches her under her chin and she closes her eyes in contentment. “Yeah, Onyx is one of a kind.”

“I mean I’m sure you could find cats that look like her, and like, I think all cats will follow a thread if you drag it and jump on the table to try and steal your food and sleep so close to your face they nearly suffocate you but…”

“But Onyx knows when you need comfort, she knows when you are sad and she also knows whether it’s a sad that needs peace and quiet or a sad that needs cheering up. Well, at least she knows it with me.”

She knows when all he wants to do is cry - _“She is not coming back, she is never coming back, and it’s my fault, it’s all my fault”_ – she knows when a weird jump or stupidly chasing her tail will make him crack a smile, she knows when she can follow him in the darkness of his room, she knows when it’s better to stay away.

“And that’s something not all cat owners have.”

He concludes and looks down, to find Onyx already staring into his eyes. “Isn’t that right, ma belle?”

She doesn’t answer, she only grips tight on the fabric of his shirt and props herself up on her hinder legs to bump her nose with his.

Suga smiles. “See? She’s one of a kind.”

Ayame has stars in her eyes, she is resting her cheek on Suga’s knee like she can’t believe what she’s seeing, but Kaede looks lost in thoughts.

He stays quiet for a time, while Ayame keeps brushing Onyx’s fur and Suga tries to fix the bow around her neck so it won’t bother her. Then, all of a sudden, he slaps his thighs, making the other three jump.

“There is only one solution then,” he declares, with a voice unexpectedly strong, under Ayame and Suga’s perplexed stares – Onyx has already gone back to her preening. “Suga-san has to come live with us, and take Miss Onyx with him!”

“Bring, Kaede-kun,” is all Suga can reply with. Saying that caught him by surprise would be an euphemism.

Ayame, on the other hand, seems delighted by the idea. “You are a genius, Dede!”

She turns to Suga like she expects an answer from him.

Suga begins to sweat. “Um, t-that’s not really…nice, that you would ask me to move in just so you can have Onyx…”

He attempts a laugh but it comes out too strangled, too high-pitched to sound convincing.

Ayame puts her hands before her and wears her most reassuring face. It’s so much like the expression Daichi had assumed this morning, and oh how Suga wishes Daichi were here right now.

It’s almost time for him to come home after all, where the hell is he?

“Oh no, Suga-san, we are not asking just for Onyx. We want you here, we really do!”

Kaede nods in agreement and he stands by Ayame’s side. In perfect sync they bring their hands to their chests like in a prayer, their eyes widen, shine with the phantom of tears and Suga tries to shrink into his seat, will the sofa to swallow him between its cushions.

Onyx looks at the kids, then at him, as if to say ‘I’m in’ but just as Ayame prepares herself to recite a dragged, tremulous ‘please’ the front door clicks open.

“DAICHI! It’s Daichi!”

Suga springs up and runs to Daichi’s side. Onyx follows him, flicking her fluffy tail from side to side and showing off her new bow, and puts her front paws in the air, a clear order to be picked up.

Daichi does. “Hey there, Onyx!”

He’s smiling and looking handsome and Suga is so happy he’s here.

“We have a problem,” is all he manages to utter in his ear before his voice is covered by the shrill in Ayame’s.

“Daddy…”

“Uh-oh.”

Yeah, that’s the understatement of the century.

“Dede and I want Suga and Miss Onyx to come live us!”

Daichi nearly drops Onyx for the surprise.

 

It takes them nearly an hour to fight off every argument the kids use to fight _their_ arguments but in the end the kids can only concede defeat.

“It was a long shot,” Ayame admits to her brother, who’s still pouting.

Suga gets to his knees and gestures for them to come. When they do- at once, in less than a blink -he hugs them tight to his chest. “You don’t know how much it means to me…”

That you would want me here at all times. That you still, somehow, haven’t gotten tired of me and my ways, my silly puns and my out-of-place, inappropriate analysis that most of the time even I can’t follow.

His voice breaks and he can’t continue. He doesn’t know where to begin, how to express all the love he feels. It’s so big his body could never keep it all inside. His thin, weak body cannot be strong enough to carry it.

(Can it?)

He loves these children so much he can’t even say it.

Kaede grips his shirt tight in his small hands. “Then stay!” he says, he nearly pleads.

Suga moves away, not much, just enough that he can look him in the eyes. “I can’t, my love. This isn’t my home.”

It’s the only argument he can make for himself, it’s his weakest one.

“But it could be!”

And at these words Suga’s heart does a weird thing inside his chest. It breaks free from the tightness of his body and it pulls itself together at the same time. It speeds up but seems to move almost in slow-motion. It’s light, it drops to his feet.

Could it be?

In a way, isn’t it already?

It was his first instinct, to come here as soon as he stepped down that bloody train. Not just because he needed to see Daichi, but because even the simple thought of being so close to his children – his children, why does he keep thinking that? – had been enough to make him feel better.

Waking up to Daichi smiling at him, to Ayame brushing his hair, to Kaede hiding yawns in his shoulder had been the single, most wonderful thing Suga has ever had for himself.

Miyagi is his home, he’d thought just yesterday morning. But the truth is different, because his home are people.

His father, of course. His nana, and Tooru. And then…then these three.

He hugs Kaede again, he has no answers to give him. He kisses his forehead and Kaede seems to understand, because he nods. “Ok,” he whispers. “Ok.”

Ayame hugs him too, tight around his waist and he says goodbye for the night. He has to.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah?”

“Of course.”

They let him go, unwillingly. The same way he leaves.

Daichi walks him to the gate alone and presses a kiss that lingers on his temple. Suga doesn’t know if he heard what Kaede said, he doesn’t know if he feels it. What Suga feels, what the kids feel. But from the way he looks at him as he moves away, Suga thinks the answer is yes. To both.

 

The apartment is quiet again when he and Onyx get back.

There’s a message from Taka stuck on the fridge.

‘studying at a friend’s. back tomorrow.’

Suga has no idea where Tooru is. He eats alone in the semi-darkness of the kitchen and as soon as he’s done he walks to his room, where he sits heavily on the bed, facing the frames on his desk.

Him and his father at graduation, holding his BA certificate up with four hands so his name can be read at the centre of the paper. Him and his father at camp, his father perfectly tanned and Suga sunburned, red as a lobster on his arms and the tip of his nose. Him and his father and his nana smiling around Suga’s birthday cake, 18 candles and cream everywhere. Him and Tooru at the beach, laughing at something Tooru said, Suga’s father behind the camera making himself known with a thumb at the side of the picture.

He fishes his phone from his pocket and looks at all the pictures of the kids he’s taken, of Daichi and himself, all together like…like…

 He was born with a missing bone at the height of his chest. For the longest time he thought he could pretend there was nothing missing, nothing that could set him and other people apart. Then he realized there was nothing to be done. The missing bone would never grow back. Anyone could see the hollow in his chest, if they poked they could pierce his heart. And who could ever make room by their side for a kid who had a hole in his chest? So he hid, stuffed the hollow with bright smiles and kindness, because nobody can hate a person who only smiles, right?

Right.

But nobody can love them either. And Suga kept on being alone, with a missing bone at the height of his chest.

Until Tooru came along, and tugged the gauze loose. Then the kids, who pulled away the padding and made his smiles become all honest. Daichi looked at his heart, his unprotected heart, and touched it with tenderness. He didn’t recoil.

Now Suga has so many places he can come back to when he’s feeling sad.

So many places, so many people. He was born with a missing bone at the height of his chest, but he made it through just fine.

Does his mother have that?

Will she have someone to come back to when she’s done running away? Did she meet someone else, does she have more children that welcome her home with toothless smiles? Or is she alone, the way she always suspected she was?

The tears come once again, once more on this endless day, and Suga cries. He cries for his mother, he cries for the things Kaede said.

He cries because he’s sad, he cries because he’s happy.

(Denial.

_“My mother’s not here.”_

_“Oh, is she out?”_

_“No, she’s gone.”_

_“I’m sorry, is she…is she dead?”_

_“…”_

Anger.

_“I hate her, Daichi. And I hate myself for hating her…”_

Bargaining.

_“Maybe if I get the best grades in the class…”_

_“Maybe if I win this match, and the one after that…”_

_“Maybe if I get better…”_

Depression.

_“She is not coming back, she is not coming back, she is not coming back, she is not coming back, she is not coming back, she is not coming back…”_ )

Through the blur of tears he looks around in his trolley, forgotten on his bedroom floor, and takes that picture out of the pocket of his jeans.

What his family used to be, before he and his father stepped down the carousel and left her still spinning. The family he could have had.

He tapes it to the white board hanging on the wall behind his desk. There’s no place for it where his family is, but he doesn’t want to hide it in the pocket of a wallet for the next ten, twenty, thirty years.

He traces his mother’s features with a thumb.

_I hope you have someone. I hope you found your place, even if that place wasn’t with us._

He takes in a deep breath and gathers the tears falling down his chin in his palm.

Then he gets into his pajamas and lies down on his bed, with Onyx purring in his hair.

 

It’s close to midnight when Tooru gets back.

Suga turns on the lamp on his nightstand and waits, listen to the noise of slammed doors, of heavy breaths. Something shatters against a wall, he doesn’t even flinch. Tooru appears by his door five minutes later, already in his pajamas and with his laptop under his arm.

Without saying a word Suga makes room by his side. Onyx, resting lightly on his pillow, barely stirs.

Tooru lies down next to him. “Is that your mother?” he asks, eyes fixed on the board.

“Yes.”

He rests his laptop on the floor and circles Suga’s frame with his arms.


	22. The journey makes me taller

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Acceptance?

It’s winter where he is.

Suga looks around, to the birch and oak trees covered in golden Christmas lights, the dirty snow on the ground, mixed with earth and nearly melted. He doesn’t recognize this place.

Maybe.

Although…

The wind blows, cold but not harsh, and moves the few leaves that haven’t fallen to the winter yet. Cold just enough to make Suga shiver. He closes his coat to his neck with a sigh and clouds of condensation rise through his parted lips to the steel grey sky.

His coat is red, he doesn’t know why that’s important. He doesn’t remember ever owning a red coat, that’s probably not important either.

The carousel is moving but it’s slow.

Suga stumbles when he comes in contact with a wooden horse but he grips the rod tight and keeps walking. He moves from a horse to a carriage, then to another horse, moves in the sense of the platform, in sync with it. For once it doesn’t try to push him down, trip him or make him stumble.

(Stumble or crumble?)      

He keeps walking, one step after the other, his feet planted firmly on the platform. He’s steady.

In the blue and golden carriage he finds his mother, seated like a queen on her throne, her thin shoulders straight and her chin high. He jumps on the horse closest to her and immediately they catch each other’s eyes.

His mother smiles and Suga does stumble now. He grips the neck of the white horse he’s riding on and after a moment he smiles back. Not his best smile, but it’s something.

“Nice day, is it?” he asks. His voice shakes, he shakes.

He wills everything to quiet down, the wind, the leaves, the tinkling music of the carousel. He waits with a breath stuck in his throat for his mother to answer. To say anything, anything at all.

“Mmm.”

Only a hum. It’s impossible to say what her voice is like. If it’s high and breathy, or low and hoarse. If she has an accent, if she rolls the ‘r’s and hisses the ‘s’s.

Suga bites his lip, looks around for something else to say.

_The weather’s lovely. How are you?_

_Where are we?_

Everything sounds stupid, out of place. His stomach drops.

Then, just as the shadow of long, silver hair catches his eyes, still like the person standing at the feet of the platform, his mother takes the rein of the horses attached to her carriage and tugs.

_What does she think she’s doing?_

Suga tries to tell her it’s silly, this whole thing is silly, they are wooden horses for crying out loud, but his mother smiles again, cheeks the slightest bit pink from the cold and bright blue eyes both mischievous and sad, and tugs at the reins again.

Under his eyes the horses stir, kick with their forelegs and shake the snow off their hair. Under his eyes the carriage moves, frees itself from the still motion of the platform and takes off, with his mother leading.

Suga jumps off his horse’s back and watches her leave, short hair perfectly coiffed and glittering in the cold December sun. He doesn’t try to follow.

 

When he wakes it’s in his room in Meiji, and it’s just the start of summer. Through the tightly shut drapes no light comes, but the air smells of morning dew, cool and fragrant.

Suga breathes it in.

It can’t be later than 7:30, there is still so much quiet around the house.

Onyx opens her eyes and rubs her nose against his cheek. “Good morning to you, too,” he says, voice groggy from sleep and still so, so tired.

The other side of the bed is empty but still warm. Tooru must have just gotten up.

Suga stands and with a quick look to the pictures on his desk, and a longer one at that on his wall, walks to the kitchen to grab some breakfast.

On his lips lingers the taste of salt.

 

 

*

 

Daichi dreams of Suga and when he wakes his body aches with it.

He takes a deep breath, to clear the chaos of images in his head, and flowers seem to bloom all around him, his bed a meadow in the spring.

He sighs, ready to concede defeat.

His sheets smell of Suga. His pillow is imbued with the fragrance of Suga’s shampoo, he can’t escape it. But the worst part is: they also smell of him, of Daichi.

He closes his eyes to avoid the glare of the morning sun, feeble, almost completely covered by dark clouds but still irritating, but doing so he’s hit even more strongly with it. His and Suga’s scents, perfectly mingled in one.

And with it, the images come. Now, though, they are memories. Real like the emotion growing inside his chest.

Suga had looked so good in his bed, rumpled and sleepy, his clothes all wrinkled and his hair a wild, adorable mess. He’d pulled Daichi close and shared his hurt with him, his relief, his joy. He’d let Daichi in completely and Daichi never wanted him to leave, he never wants him to leave.

He wants him to stay, pick a side in this bed. He wants him to stay here, in this house, and never learn how the washing machine works, plant new flowers in the garden and sing his weird made-up songs to the kids. Daichi wants him to stay.

And the kids want it too, apparently.

But would they…would they feel the same way, if Suga were to become his…

Daichi drags his hands down his face. God, he can’t even think it without getting embarrassed. It’s like he never had boyfriends before. Or girlfriends, or a _wife_ , for crying out loud.

His alarm goes off and he springs to his feet. Anything to get away from this weird heaviness in his chest.

If only it were so easy to escape thoughts as much as it were escaping a place.

He steps into the shower and his mind wanders again. He thinks of how Suga was here, only 24 hours ago Suga stood here naked and washed himself with Daichi’s body wash. Dropped some on his hand, like Daichi is doing now, and massaged his body with it.

His lovely ankles, his calves, the soft flesh of his inner thigh, then around the wonderful curve of his hips, his stomach – that Daichi had seen, that Daichi had touched. The long column of his neck, the slope of his shoulders, where dozens of drops would have gathered, only to fall down the curve of his spine.

Down, down, they’d have followed it, only to stop at the base of his back, where his – perfect, perfect – dimples would have forced them to a halt.

Then the water would have fallen on him, like it is on Daichi, to leave only white bubbles gathering down his feet, covering and uncovering the tattoo that Daichi felt under his fingers, only a week or so ago.

Daichi places a hand on the wall, the blue stone tiles of the shower, and it curls into a fist.

His knees feel like they are made of jelly. His whole body is trembling.

He turns the water cold and tries to wash away the heat gathering low in his stomach.

He doesn’t succeed.

 

 

*

 

Days pass. His father makes sure to call every night, and when he can’t he texts.

Now that Suga’s gone it must be hell for him, alone at the market. Dad is good at making you feel the same passion he nurtures for his art – he would never call it that, but Suga’s dad is an artist through and through, Suga will tell so to anyone who’s willing to listen – but he likes to be able to look a client in the eyes and give them and every single piece all of his attention as he talks.

When it’s so many people gathered around him, talking all together…well, let’s just say Suga worries.

“Please, please, remember to get paid, dad. I know you are weird about asking for money but there are people who count on that, who count on you being too polite and while you are waiting, and talking to another client not to seem like you are pressuring them to get the money quick, poof, they disappear in the crowd!”

“Koushi, I know, I’ve done this job for over three decades…”

“Yes, exactly! You are a veteran, you can do things few people can and you should be paid for your work because your work is one of a kind!”

His father laughs on the other end of the line and it’s good. It’s good to hear that. “If you hadn’t always been so hung up on volleyball I would have suggested you take on cheerleading back in high school.”

“I would have made a wonderful cheerleader.”

“I don’t doubt it, son.”

“But now I’m too old to get into that, so I guess I’ll have to settle for being your personal cheerleader, telling you to watch out for old ladies, because they can be surprisingly sneaky.”

“Old ladies? I hope you’re joking, Koushi.”

His father’s voice turns reproachful and Suga sighs. For having a thirty years experience his father sure thinks like a newbie.

“I’m telling you, dad, they are a kind to watch out for. Some of them will just put everything in their purse and leave, and if you stop them they’ll be all ‘’oh, I’m sorry, dear, I’m so distracted’’…”

“Couldn’t it be they are just forgetful because of their age?”

“Absolutely, but that still doesn’t mean you should let them walk away with your stuff! You worked hard on each piece, dad, hell you almost starve yourself over them, you deserve to have that recognized by your customers!”

It’s not something that comes naturally to his father. His job is also his passion, it’s the blood that runs in his veins, and Suga knows he feels weird being paid for it. Oftentimes it’s hard for him even putting his works up for sale.

It hadn’t always been like this. Before Ginko-san offered him a spot, first as his apprentice then as his associate, dad only carved as a hobby, an all-consuming, life-defining hobby. It was Ginko-san, and the need to provide for his family that pushed him to make it his job.

And it had been Suga – clueless fifteen years old Suga - who had suggested he takes a spot for himself in markets, that he leaves the quiet solitude of his shop and starts going where the people are to show his works.

Dad makes more now, he manages to save some money for himself, something that, when Suga was little, was nearly impossible for them to do but Suga…Suga knows a part of him will always hate letting his pieces go, selling them away for a price that, even when fair, will never be enough to cover the heart he put into carving out every detail.

“Koushi, I can hear you thinking…”

“Oh, s-sorry dad.”

How long did he stay quiet?

“What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing, I…”

His father would let it go, if he knew Suga doesn’t want to talk about it. But Suga already took advantage of his father’s character for too long, to avoid talking about too many things.

“I was just wondering if forcing you to sell your stuff to more people has…has made you love your job less.”

“No.”

The answer comes quick, unexpectedly strong, it resonates between them, in the miles that separate them. “No it hasn’t, Koushi. Don’t blame yourself for this too.”

Suga nearly drops the phone on the floor. He jumps in sync with his heart and looks for his father’s eyes in the pictures in front of him.

“How did you-”

His father laughs again, but this time it’s not amused. “We are two peas in a pod of misplaced guilt, kid. We may not look much alike but in some things we are exactly the same.”

It’s weird how much that warms him. It’s not a good thing, nor a good feeling, carrying all this guilt on your shoulders, but it’s good to hear that he and his father are not opposites of a coin in every way there can be.

“I’m not going to lie to you, Koushi. Sometimes, selling the pieces I make is hard for me, especially when I sell them to people who I know are not going to value them or treat them the way I would.”

Suga’s shoulders drop.

“But you know what makes up for it? The face you made that time I managed to buy that coat you liked, back when you were in high school. The brown one with big, round buttons.”

Oh.

“The look of surprise in your eyes when I was able to send you and Tooru to the beach for your 19th birthday, and rent that little house that was two feet away from the sea. The knowledge that, even if only thanks to scholarships and that beautiful brain of yours, I could support you while you were in the city, attending one of the most prestigious universities in the country.”

“These things, and a thousand more, make up for every piece I create that gets returned with a nasty scratch or a missing foot. More than make up for it, in fact.”

They stay quiet for a while and Suga smiles back at each of the smiles his father is directing his way through the glass of a frame.

Each one of those smiles is for him, proud, happy, amused, or smug. They are all for him.

Last he stares at the one on the wall, just as bright as the others, but made lighter by the lack of wrinkles near his mouth, the dark shadows under his eyes. It’s the same smile, but on a face centuries younger.

“I love you, dad,” Suga says, his eyes fixed in the dark brown of his father’s.

“I love you too, Koushi.”

They both have to go now. Suga has to take the train and pick Kaede up from kindergarten. His father, judging by the constant noise Suga could hear throughout their conversation, took some time to himself with the excuse to grab a bite, but if he makes the customers wait too long they are bound to leave. And that can’t happen.

“See you soon, dad.” Suga is the first to acknowledge it.

His father follows. “Yes, see you soon.”

Suga takes a look at the calendar. It’s only a matter of days.

 

 

*

 

“Ennoshita, ring Shimizu-san and tell her the papers for the Arakawa divorce are ready.”

Ennoshita nods and dials the number of her office. He hums once, twice, three times then he hangs up. “She’s sending Inoue-san to get them, says she’ll call Arakawa-san right away so she can sign them as soon as possible.”

Daichi nods and walks back to his office to wait for Mai.

This case is very important to the firm, but most importantly to Shimizu-san. It’s a high-profile case, for the people involved, for the reasons behind the divorce and she wants it to be handled quickly but well, leaving nothing to chance.

Daichi couldn’t agree more. A vermin who hits his own wife deserves to end up on the streets, as far as he’s concerned, dragged and publicly shamed, and more so if he’s supposed to be a man of the law. A fucking judge.

Three people worked on this so that man would pay. Time in jail and millions to pay to his wife. Daichi is just glad they managed to pull this off, and that there were no children involved.

His cell phone buzzes and beeps and Daichi smiles for the first time since he got here.

From Suga

good luck on the case, not that you need it…

He told Suga about it some weeks ago. It’s not often that he takes his job home – let’s say it’s never – but a case like this is impossible to leave inside the office. But he never mentioned having to close it today. Suga must have heard it in the news.

And he wasted no time texting him.

Daichi types a simple ‘thanks’ with a knot in his throat, he doesn’t know what else to say, and just as he hits ‘send’ the door to his office opens.

“Hey, Daichi.”

“’Morning.”

“You are smiling,” Mai says.

Daichi looks at his reflection in the dark computer screen and he finds that he is. He shrugs, trying to be casual, and gestures for Mai to come in, have a seat.

She does, if with a moment of hesitation.

Daichi hands her the Arakawa file and she places it on her lap without nothing more than a distracted look.

“So…”

“So?”

They haven’t seen each other much lately. After that one night at his house, what now seems like eons ago, and their talk in the office.

_Just a crush._

_You are blowing things out of proportion._

Daichi doesn’t know if she was trying to give him space, time to clear his head, or if she was avoiding him. He’s not sure what he was doing either, if one thing or the other, or both. But he knows what has to be done now. God knows he’s waited long enough.

He sits back in his chair and it squeaks under his weight. He clears his throat, places his joined hand on the desk and, after another brief pause, he opens his mouth…

“It’s over.”

He blinks.

Yes, that was more or less what he was planning to say but it definitely didn’t come from him.

He looks at Mai, for the first time since she came in, and she’s smiling, amused almost to the point of laughter.

“Um, well…”

He clears his throat again and nods. “Yeah, that’s…I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

“And by ‘see each other’ you mean doing it on your desk at lunch hour, of course.”

Daichi rolls his eyes and now Mai does laugh. If he weren’t feeling so relieved right now, he’d notice the shadow of disappointment flashing in Mai’s eyes. Or maybe not, Mai has always been good at hiding away emotions she doesn’t think fit with her composed, mature but cool independent woman image.

“I’m sorry, Mai,” Daichi begins to say, and continues even when Mai tries to brush him off. “No, listen, I…I should have handled this whole thing better. I should have been upfront about this weeks ago, instead of…avoiding it.”

“Yeah, well, it is what it is.”

“Besides, I didn’t exactly try to create opportunities to talk either. In fact I don’t think I’ve spent this much time in my office since I first arrived here.”

She grins but her attempt to joke just makes Daichi feel more guilty.

“I’m sorr-”

“Oh, will you let it go already?” Her voice turns almost harsh for a second but the next she’s calm once more, so much so Daichi wonders if he just dreamed that outburst.

Mai shakes her head and her auburn hair catches the lights of the office beautifully. When she’d first moved here Daichi could barely get two words out in a sentence in front of her. Well, it was mostly because of the way she would not so casually touch his arm and place a hand on his chest whenever he’d say a joke and make her laugh, but, yeah, in part it was simply because of how gorgeous he found her.

She still is, of course, a beauty like that doesn’t just fade in the matter of months…but apparently that’s a time long enough for everything else to change.

“Listen, Daichi, I won’t pretend I’m not a little…disappointed this is ending so fast. Now I’ll have to look for another man to satisfy my healthy needs and I’m not thrilled about that. You…you were rather good at that.”

She throws him a playful grin and Daichi scoffs. It’s always like that with Mai, never too serious for too long. “But we always knew this had an expiration date so let’s not…let’s not make it more dramatic than it needs to be.”

Daichi nods, what else can he do?, and watches as she stands and walks toward him. She stops by his chair, before their bodies can come into touch. “Tell me just one thing, though,” she says and suddenly she looks unsure of herself.

“Are you…are you ending this because of what,” she hesitates, “what we talked about that day?”

_Are you ending this because of him?_

Daichi swallows, his mouth has gone dry. He breaks it off with Mai, and what exists between him and Suga will become all the more real. Not just private touches between them, where no one but them can see, or thoughts that keep Daichi up at night but something concrete.

“Yes.”

Something solid, something worth taking a chance on.

“Yes, that’s why I’m ending this.”

Mai nods. She doesn’t seem surprised, but maybe a little relieved. Maybe a little sad.

“So it’s not just a crush.”

“No, it’s not. I’m…”

_In love with him._

It feels wrong, to tell it to someone other than Suga. So, like he did with Tanaka and Noya, he lets Mai fill the blanks. It’s pretty obvious anyway. He’s sure Mai can read it all over his face.

“Oh.”

Now she does look surprised.

Daichi shrugs, a way to appear less nervous than he feels, but the way his finger is tapping on the edge of the desk gives him completely away.

“And he reciprocates.” That’s all Mai says.

“Is that a question?”

“No, not really.”

She smiles, and again she looks lighter. “Meeting him once was enough to know. In fact I’m ready to bet it was your fault _it_ took this long at all.”

Daichi blushes to the root of his hair. “We haven’t yet, I mean we didn’t…”

_I haven’t even kissed him yet…_

“A-and why would it be…it’s not my fault!”

_Probably._

Mai’s shoulders begin to shake. “Oh boy, you are giving the term ‘taking it slow’ a whole other meaning, Sawamura.”

Yeah, that he can’t dispute.

Shit, what if he’s taking _too_ long? What if Suga gets tired of waiting and goes back running to that Satori guy? Or…or he meets another guy that is not as old as Daichi is, that has no children or an ex-wife or-

“Relax, cowboy.”

A hand settles on his shoulder and squeezes, comforting and strong.

“If he’s waited this long I’m sure he won’t mind a couple of days more.”

“But-”

“Also in my experience,” Mai adds before he can argue, “a person who waits this long must know perfectly well what they are waiting for. And they wouldn’t just throw it away from one day to the other.”

With this and a last, crooked smile Mai leaves.

Daichi stares at the closed door for what feels like hours and it’s only the buzzing of the phone that starts him out of his reverie. He reaches out to take it and in his haste he nearly drops it.

There are two new messages.

One is from Suga, ‘chocolate or vanilla?’, totally random. Daichi texts back chocolate with a frown on his face.

The other is from Moniwa-san.

‘If you are still interested in French authors and books in original language, I just purchased a few interesting ones. Come by around 19:30 and I’ll be glad to show you some pieces.’

Daichi looks at the portable calendar sitting on his desk.

He types back a quick agreement and his thanks to Moniwa-san, then he calls Suga to tell him he’ll be home late.

 

 

*

 

“That’s alright. Of course. No, surprisingly I have nothing better to do on a Thursday at 8 pm.”

A hum reaches Suga’s ear. “No wild college parties?”

“Nope, not at that hour, but I think Tooru wants to hit a couple of stripper joints later, I’ll have to ask him…”

Daichi laughs and Suga has to bite his lip to hide the smug grin growing on his face. He loves that laugh, he wishes he could see it right now, brightening Daichi’s face, making his eyes crinkle charmingly at the corners.

“That’s good to hear. Hope you guys have fun.”

“Oh, I’m sure we will.”

Daichi laughs again, loud and honest, and tells him he has to go. “My next client just arrived but, um, thanks for…for the text.”

Voices from the background that Suga doesn’t recognize. One of them appears to be yelling. He barely has time to stammer a ‘no problem’ that Daichi is already saying goodbye and telling him he’s sorry.

“It’s alright,” Suga murmurs to a dead line.

It was probably a scorned partner, blindsided by the divorce papers and furious. Suga winces at the thought and sends out a prayer for Daichi. He already had to deal with the Arakawa case today – that thing has been all over the news for months – if he gets another nasty situation thrown on his lap he’ll come back home crawling.

Suga looks at the pink box in hand. Hopefully, though, these cupcakes will manage to cheer him up.

He made them for Tooru but he would be lying if he said his hand slipped with the quantities and he found himself with an extra dozen by accident.

Hell, he would have baked Daichi an entire cake if that doofus had told him the Arakawa case was to be closed today. But Daichi doesn’t like talking about work at home, the only reason why Suga knows Daichi is handling this case at all is because he asked him months ago, when the story first exploded and you couldn’t turn on the TV without stumbling on the news and talk shows mentioning and arguing about it.

Suga sighs and walks past the gate. The doors of the kindergarten are already open. He checks the time on his phone and, sure enough, he made it just in time.

The bell rings, and in the blink of an eye the small courtyard fills with screaming children and mothers who yell at their children to stop screaming.

Kaede takes his hand as soon as he sees him and smiles up at him like they haven’t seen each other in ages.

“Hi, Suga-san.”

So formal.

Suga smiles back and leads Kaede out on the street, away from this chaos.

“Hello, Kaede-kun,” he says with his best posh accent. Which, let’s be honest, is really not _that_ good. “Did you have a good day at school?”

“Mmm…”

Kaede pauses, his mouth twitches upward for a second before he forces it into a neutral line again.

“I got full score on my spelling test.”

He says it like it’s nothing, but Suga sees the glace he throws his way, to check his reaction.

Suga’s smile turns even wider. “Did you really? Let me see!”

It’s two papers, full of kanji written one after the other, a little messy, Suga can see the uncertainty of some strokes, the wavering of the pen where Kaede hadn’t been sure if this or that sign was correct the way he’d written it the first time, but next to each kanji there are only bright blue check signs.

The numbers from 1 to 10, the kanji for child, mountain and sky, then strength, woman, fire, mind…thirty kanji, all correct.

“Wow, Misato-san gave you so many…”

He finally looks up from the paper. Kaede is shifting his weight from one foot to the other, biting his lip like he’s nervous.

Suga reaches out and moves the bangs away from his eyes. They are getting a little too long, but that’s a matter to discuss later, now there’s only one thing he wants to say. “I’m so proud of you, Kaede.”

“R-really?”

“Of course, this is amazing!”

Kaede relaxes and his shy, little smile becomes a grin. But it doesn’t stop there, for it keeps growing, wider and brighter, till it’s a beam so wonderful it takes Suga’s breath away.

“I studied a lot for it!”

Suga puts the test in his bag, careful not to wrinkle it, and takes Kaede’s hand in his again. “I know you did, that’s why I’m so proud. You did your best and it paid off!”

“Wait till we show this to your father, he’ll want to frame it, I’m sure.”

The street they are walking on now is a very busy one. Kaede preens at his words and moves closer to him to avoid bumping into strangers.

“Doing your best always pays off, Suga-san?”

Suga freezes for a moment, mind and body, and a businessman nearly runs into his back.

Trust Kaede to ask the questions there’s no real answer to.

He chews his lip in thought, aware of the pair of eyes fixed on his face.

It’s a tricky concept, this, to explain to a kid this young. How do you tell a four years old that no, doing the best you can not only doesn’t always pay off, but almost never does? That most of the time you have to keep trying, you have to keep fighting to get what you want, and even then you could not achieve it? Even then a more gifted, a more naturally talented person than you are could come and take away what you’ve worked so hard, so long for?

How do you tell a kid that, without disappointing him? Without making him question what the point of breaking your back in effort even is, without the guarantee of success?

“Suga-san?”

Suga tightens his grip on Kaede and slows down, brings them closer to the inner side of the road, closer to the shop windows that reflect the doubt in his eyes.

“I’m…I’m afraid not, Kaede-kun,” he says at last. He chooses not to lie. “Sometimes you do your best but you still don’t succeed. You work your, um, your behind off, and you don’t get as far as you’d hoped to.”

“Oh.”

Kaede’s shoulders drop. “Then what’s the point in trying?”

_There it is._

And again Suga is honest. “I don’t know.”

Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression.

What comes next?

“But I think...I think the most admirable of people are those who always try their hardest, and keep trying, keep doing their best even after life has let them down.”

He believes that, he does. But how hard must it be, to _be_ that person.

In a way he knows. He knows exactly just how hard it is. It’s hard like hiding your volleyball gear, your uniform away, behind piles of clothes you never wear, with the certainty you’ll never have a use for it again. It’s hard like struggling not to fall asleep on your chemistry book at past midnight on a school night, because you have a test tomorrow and if you want to be the best you can’t fail.

It’s hard like first admitting to your reflection in the mirror that your mother left, she abandoned you and your father for reasons you don’t know and that you are too afraid to ask for.

Kaede squeezes his hand and Suga looks down at him.

Kaede is smiling. “That makes sense, Suga-san. It’s like in the movies. If the hero gives up after he failed then he won’t save anyone anymore and he won’t become _super_.”

Super.

Is being super reward enough for trying so hard, for suffering so much?

His gym bag is where he left it seven years ago. His uniform would still fit, maybe, but is he fit to wear it?

No. Maybe not. But what about another uniform?

In two months he’ll get his Master’s Degree, and it’ll be one dream realized. The first.

(The others? A family of his own, someone to love, still a work in progress.)

His mother left him when he was 4 years old, and she is not coming back. Was finally getting some answers worth the time he lost hoping she would?

He doesn’t know.

But it’d be cool, to be super. To try his hand at being super.

“Don’t you think so, Kaede-kun?”

Kaede nods, a smile in his eyes, and brings his fist up in the air in the classic Superman pose.

Suga throws his head back and laughs, and does the pose with Kaede. They walk home like that, half-jogging, bags bouncing everywhere and fists high in the sky.

It’d be cool to be super, but maybe it’s best to start small. Try his hand at being the best he can be, now with a little less fear of the unknown, and a past that’s clear behind his shoulders.

 

 

*

 

Moniwa-san is already waiting for him outside his shop when Daichi gets there. He spots him from the opposite side of the road and waves, brief and kind of awkward. It makes Daichi smile.

“Good evening, Sawamura-san.”

“Good evening,” Daichi says, a little out of breath. The last of his clients kept him for longer than Daichi had planned, he had to run to make it to Moniwa-san’s shop on time. Well, almost on time. He’s eight minutes late. “Thank you for keeping the shop open for me, Moniwa-san. I really appreciate it.”

Moniwa-san tries to wave him off in a casual gesture but it only ends up looking sheepish. Sheepish or awkward, it seems like those are his only modes. “It’s no problem, really. Besides you’re helping me not lose all my savings to that harpy…”

Daichi decides not to mention that that’s his job and Moniwa-san is already paying him quite handsomely for that and steps inside the store.

His first impression of it is that it’s absolute chaos. The store itself is not small, especially for a family-run business, but it’s absolutely packed with books and shelves so full they look ready to explode. And then more books, lying around in piles on the floor and on the low tables meant for consultation.

In the far corner of the room there’s a reading area, with old, high-backed stuffed chairs in supple black leather or clad in heavy red velvet, a couple of round coffee table and old-fashioned lamps that give a pleasant, golden light.

The air is stiff but not unpleasant, it smells of old books and ink and of something clean too, probably some kind of freshener. The further he walks into this shop the more Daichi convinces himself that Suga would love it.

He can almost picture him curled up on one of those chairs, hair falling on his face and a pout on his lips, pushing his glasses on his nose with an annoyed sigh and mouthing the words he’s reading.

“I collected all the books by French authors we have to save us some time. They are all downstairs…” Moniwa-san points to the stairs by the cashier.

“Lead the way, Moniwa-san.”

And so they go.

Downstairs the mess is doubled. There are three tables, all covered in books, and chairs covered in books and the floor is also covered in books.

“Don’t tell me these are all of them…”

Forget dinner time, Daichi will get home by breakfast tomorrow morning if he has to check out all these books…

“Oh no, no. Only the ones on this desk and chair. The others are just books in need of some maintenance.”

Thank God.

“Thank God.”

Moniwa-san chuckles.

They are a lot less, just the ones he selected and put aside, but still Daichi counts at least forty. They are all in good or at least decent conditions, and considering how old many of these are it’s really quite impressive. Daichi browses through them all, with more or less interest, seated on a chair Moniwa-san freed up for him.

“This one is an essay written by Zola in 1880, it’s an absolute must-read for those who are interested in Naturalism…”

“This is a collection of all of Rimbaud’s earlier poems…”

“…Verlaine’s best work…”

“…a masterpiece, so ahead of its time…”

After almost an hour of this Daichi’s head is spinning. Names, dates, words he has no clue what they mean a whirlwind in his brain.

Some of these poets Suga has mentioned them in relation to his thesis, others Daichi remembers came up the few times they discussed which Suga liked best but while there are a few collections that seem interesting, and a few books that for condition and aesthetics absolutely took Daichi’s breath away he’s not convinced.

“I don’t know, Moniwa-san, I mean, he’s studied most of these…if I were him I’d be nauseated with these people by now.”

He thinks about what he just said and immediately tries to apologize but Moniwa-san shakes his head and says he understands.

“I studied most of these myself, Sawamura-san, and I’ve got to say that after hours spent hunched over his poems Mallarmè still makes my eye twitch…”

A weight settles in Daichi’s stomach. “Yeah, maybe…maybe I should have picked something different altogether…”

He sighs and rubs at his tired eyes.

Fuck.

He just wants…he wants to find something perfect. Not just good, not something that Suga might like, or that he loves but that will inevitably be put away on a shelf soon to gather dust. He wants Suga to smile when he looks at his gift, he wants him to think to himself ‘’yeah, Daichi got me that’’. He wants his gift, whatever it is, to make Suga happy.

Jeez, is he asking too much from a simple book?

Moniwa-san squeezes his shoulder and when Daichi looks up at him he finds an honest smile on his face. “We can look around the shop if you want, I only selected collections of poems and the likes because I thought this is what you were interested in, but I’m sure there are some more French authors upstairs we can turn to…”

“Thanks, Moniwa-san.”

_I’m sorry this is taking so long._

“Like I said, it’s no problem.”

“Besides, it’s not like I have people waiting for me at home…” he adds, almost like an afterthought.

Now it’s Daichi who reaches out to squeeze his shoulder in comfort.

It takes them another half hour if not more to go through all the shelves in Moniwa-san’s shop. It’s quicker, only because they move onto the next book as soon as they don’t catch French words on the spine. After six shelves, from top to bottom, of books that don’t appeal, Daichi is tempted to just give up and get that Rimbaud, at least he knows for sure Suga likes the guy so even if it’s not perfect it’ll be a decent present.

He’s on his way back downstairs, with Moniwa-san trailing helplessly behind, when the books resting on the reading area catch his eye.

“We didn’t look through those ones, did we?” he asks but he already knows they haven’t.

He makes his way to them.

Modern crap. Harry Potter, both translated in Japanese and in original language, Dostoevskij, Kenzaburo Oe, more modern crap, and the always present Conan Doyle.

On a chair nearby there’s more French authors, from Camus to Proust, and several Voltaires, but it’s a small book in whites and greys that catches Daichi’s attention and finally manages to hold it.

On the cover, the drawing of a woman sitting on a rocking chair by the fire, surrounded by children listening to her attentively. Above their heads a sign:

Contes de ma mère l’Oye

Daichi can’t even read that.

Still, he opens it. The pages are thick, and a little yellowed by time, but everything, from the charming font to the stunning drawings at the beginning of each chapter, adds to the charm of this little thing.

On the first pages, before the title and the author scribbled in smaller writing, a drawing of a woman with the head of a goose.

And Daichi understands.

Le Petit Poucet, La Belle au bois dormant, Le Chat bottè, Cendrillon.

These are all fairy tales.

_“He’d tuck me in and start talking about woods and carvings…that was his idea of bedtime story.”_

“Moniwa-san,” he calls the other man, who’s busy tidying up the mess they made.

Moniwa-san turns and makes his way back to him. “Found something you like?”

Daichi smiles. “You could say that. How much for this?”

 

 

*

 

“What time did daddy say he’d be home?” Ayame asks for the third time in less than an hour.

Suga sighs and gives her the same exact answer as before. “He didn’t say, he just told me he’d be a little late because he had to run a few errands.”

“And before you can ask,” he asks when he catches sight of her mouth opening, “no, he didn’t tell me what kind of errands, either. And I didn’t ask.”

If Daichi had wanted to tell him, he would have. Simple as that.

“It’s probably work related anyway.”

Suga keeps stirring the broth for the shoyu ramen and throws another look at the kitchen clock. Ten minutes or so to nine. He stirs again and with his back to the children he misses the knowing glance they share.

“Yeah, it’s definitely work,” Ayame agrees, and Suga detects nothing weird in her tone.

Why should he?

“Well, dinner’s ready so as soon as he gets here all we have to do is put it in the plates…”

“Mmm.”

“Shoyu ramen is daddy’s favourite,” Kaede throws around, too casual not to be fake. Instinctively Suga tenses.

“Did you know that, Suga-san? That it’s daddy’s favourite?”

Suga shrugs. A little broth spills on the stove. “I don’t think so…”

Of course he knew that. It’s the reason why he’s making it in the first place.

He chances a look back at Kaede and sees the shadow of a smirk on his face. His tension turns in dawning horror, goosebumps on his bare arms.

This kid knows. This kid knows everything.

Does Ayame also…?

Suga glances at her and sighs in relief when he sees the clueless irritation on her face. She’s tapping her foot on the leg of the stool, and her cheeks are stuffed with…

“Ayame! Did you steal one of the meatballs?”

“No?” she tries to say through her mouthful.

Suga’s glance turns into a glare. “Ayame…”

“Ok, yeah,” she admits at last. “But I’m hungry!”

Suga sighs and takes the plate of meatballs away…only to put a couple of meatballs on a smaller plate and hand that to her. “Here. It’s almost nine after all…” he grumbles.

“Thanks, Suga-san! You’re the best!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

He bites the inside of his cheek so his smile won’t give his pleasure away.

“Come taste the broth, Kaede-kun.”

He blows on it before Kaede drinks it, a hand down near Kaede’s chin in case some of it spills and waits for the verdict with bated breath. Well, not really but he’s still pretty nervous.

Sweets he can bake, stick to the recipe and everything will be fine but with salty dishes he always has a way of going over the top with the spices. A lot over the top.

“It’s good,” Kaede says after a pause. He smacks his lips a couple of times and nods. “Yeah, almost as good as nana’s.”

“Really?”

“Mmm.”

“So it’s not too spicy?”

“No no.”

Suga puts down the spoon, fixes his apron – _Stupid_ ‘ _kiss_ _the_ _cook’_ – and throws a fist in the air. “Woohoo! Nearly as good as nana’s!”

The kids laugh at his antics.

“Is your nana a good cook too, Suga-san?” Ayame asks through another meatball.

“Eh…let’s just say she’s much, much better at baking. Kind of like me.”

“Oooh, does she make cakes as good as yours, Suga-san?”

Suga throws her a long look. In perfect silence he stares at her until Ayame is squirming in her seat, confused and intrigued. Suga leans down toward her, elbow on the kitchen island, and whispers in her ear “No, they are much, much better.”

“You gotta introduce us, Suga-san!”

Suga throws his head back and laughs. “You little grasshopper, you are only after people for their culinary abilities!”

“Well, duh!”

They laugh together while Kaede shakes his head in disapproval.

“Seriously, when I was visiting she made me the most incredible chocolate cake. Here, I’m sure I’ve taken some pictures…”

He scrolls past the new ones he took of the kids since he came back – “Suga-san, delete this!” – and shows the cake to them. These kids make for a good audience, at each new picture, all from different angles, they ‘aaah’ and ‘oooh’ and ask him to make one just like that soon.

“Your nana is so pretty,” Ayame comments when they get to pictures of her and his father Suga took before dinner.

“Thank you.”

She is.

Suga smiles down at a picture of her and his father arguing, he with a defeated expression on his face and palms up in surrender, and she with a ladle in her hand, wielding it like a sword.

“Here they were arguing over whether the broth for the noodles needed more soy sauce or not…”

The kids laugh and Suga is hit by the realization of how familiar this scenario is.

“You and your dad don’t look much alike, Suga-san,” Ayame says as she zooms on his father’s bearded, impossibly calm face.

“No, I suppose not.”

“But you both look like nice people,” Kaede interjects. When Suga and Ayame turn to look at him, he shrugs. “I don’t know how to say it…”

“No, I get it,” Ayame turns to look at Suga, then at the profile in the picture, “if I were on a bus I’d sit next to both of you…”

Suga smiles. “Thank you.”

They go through all the pictures he took, of the market, of some of his father’s best pieces, of the mountains that surround his town, and more of his father, clueless to the attention and busy showing this or that work.

“And that’s it.”

He puts the phone back in his pocket and hurries to turn off the stove under the broth.

“Wait a second,” Ayame interjects, and stares at Suga with a crease between her brows.

“What is it?”

“Where’s your mom, Suga-san? I didn’t see her anywhere.”

Kaede nods, as though the thought has only just occurred to him, and looks at Suga with the same perplexed expression as his sister.

_Maybe it’s best to start small._

The conversation he had with Kaede earlier comes all back to him and Suga sighs. He leans on the counter, suddenly tense, suddenly nervous, and chews on his lip in thought.

Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression.

What comes next?

What _comes_ next?

And he gets it.

Acceptance.

“Suga-san?”

He nods and smiles at the kids, whose expressions have quickly turned uncertain. They are questioning whether or not they should have asked and Suga knows they are ready to apologize over it.

He stops them before they can with another smiles, that he hopes is more convincing than the other.

“My mother left when I was four,” he says.

_She abandoned me and my father and she’s never coming back._

“That’s why she wasn’t in any of the pictures. I haven’t seen her since I was little.”

He doesn’t tell the whole story, it’s too much – too long, too complicated – for kids this age. And they don’t ask for it.

Only Ayame asks a single, poignant question, between grinded teeth. “Why?”

Suga strokes her cheek and looks her in the eyes. “I’m not sure.”

And it’s the truth. It’s half a lie. It’s all he thinks he can give her.

At nine, hearing that mothers sometimes simply don’t want to stay is too much. If it had been him, nine years old and asking this same question to his dad, he couldn’t have handled it.

“I’m not sure why, kid.”

Ayame nods and without another word she throws her arms around his neck and hugs him tight.

After a moment Kaede does the same, his small arms can’t even meet around Suga’s shoulders.

Suga holds them close to him and caresses Ayame’s hair as she cries – for him, she’s crying for him. Kaede’s hands close into fists around the fabric of his shirt.

By the time Daichi comes home, it’s almost 9:30, Ayame’s eyes are dry again, if a little red, and Kaede is sitting on the counter and telling Suga how many noodles he should put in each plate.

And Suga? Suga is smiling, in his ridiculous ‘kiss the cook’ apron and with dried stains of broth on his sleeve.

 

 

*

 

The kids hug him tighter than usual today. Daichi wants to think it’s because of how late he was – _it’s_ _already_ _9:30_ , _shit_ – but the suspicious brightness of Ayame’s eyes and the scowl on Kaede’s face tell him otherwise.

“What took you so long, dad?” Ayame asks, her hands planted firmly on her hips, but the scolding falls flat, it comes out more a whine.

Thankfully “I was getting a present for Suga,” is a good enough excuse and he even gets a smile, first from Kaede, then from Ayame, who’s already trying to open the clasps of his briefcase to give it a quick look.

Of course that’s the exact moment Suga chooses to appear, a vision even with his hair a mess and wearing that apron he dislikes so much, stained with flour and sauce in several spots.

“Hey, it was about time…”

Now that’s a scolding tone.

Suga puts his hands on his hips – as much as Daichi loves Ayame and appreciates her efforts in the art of imitation, Suga’s pose is that much more impressive – and regards Daichi with a long, piercing look. “I was considering sending the dogs after you.”

“We don’t have any dogs, Suga…”

“Well, we should have!”

Silence follows as the meaning of Suga’s words sets in and the man in question begins to blush to the root of his hair. “Um, I mean…”

“We should totally have dogs!” Ayame echoes and high-fives her brother when Kaede nods in agreement, so fast his neck looks like it might snap any second.

“Just the other day you were talking about how much you wanted Onyx!” Daichi reminds them, an attempt to lighten up the atmosphere around him and Suga, who is now covering his eyes in mortification.

But of course it doesn’t go as planned.

“We want both!” Kaede declares in a bout of enthusiasm. Then, lower, “Suga-san told me once Miss Onyx is fine around dogs so we could get her, and some dogs…”

“And Suga-san…” Ayame adds.

“And Suga-san,” agrees Kaede.

“I am being put on the same level as dogs…”

Suga looks torn between laughter and tears. Daichi can relate.

“S-Suga is not a pet you can just get from the shelter, kids!” Again he tries to reason.

The kids brush his words away. “Well, duh, we know that, dad. We are just saying that that’s what we want.”

“Yeah, in an hypoethical world.”

“Hypothetical, Kaede-kun.”

“Yes, hypothetical. Thanks, Suga-san!” Kaede smiles at Suga and Suga really can’t help but smile back. All dimples on display and head a little tilted to the side, he makes Daichi’s heart skip a beat.

Ayame tugs at the sleeve of his jacket.

“See? We need him, dad…” she whispers in his ear, a knowing, conspiratorial look in her eyes.

Daichi doesn’t say anything to that, for he’s too inclined to agree. It’s been months since Suga first came into their lives and Daichi already can’t remember what it was like, before. How did he manage for so long without him?

That’s it, though. He _managed_. That’s the difference.

“Do you three plan on standing there for the rest of the night? No, because if that’s how it is tell me, I’ve got no problems eating for four…”

Suga doesn’t need to ask twice, but when Daichi sees exactly what’s for dinner he freezes again, causing Kaede to run into him and nearly fall with his butt on the floor.

“Daddy!”

“Sorry, kid,” he says, distractedly, and helps him get to his feet in one swift pull.

Then he turns toward Suga. “Y-You made shoyu ramen?”

“I thought, um, I mean you had a rough day so I thought it’d be nice…”

Suga tries a casual shrug but his cheeks are turning a lovely pink and he is not quite meeting Daichi’s eyes. “I tried to make it as flavorless as possible because I know you’re a big baby who can’t handle spices…”

Daichi forces his gaze down on the floor and nods in thanks. The kids are here, in the room with them, he can’t…he can’t do any of the things he’d love to do to show just grateful he is – for dinner, for tonight, for every night since that faithful day at that coffee shop. So he limits himself to a nod and an awkward pat on Suga’s shoulder.

The ramen is delicious and he serves himself another bowl as soon as he’s done with the first. Then it’s time for the cupcakes, that Suga brought from home but that Daichi knows were made extra for them.

All throughout dinner Daichi keeps a hand on Suga’s knee and draws circles on the fabric of Suga’s jeans, squeezes his thigh every time their eyes meet across the table.

 

The kids go watch TV like every night as soon as dinner’s done and everyone has finished eating. They stand and kiss Suga on the cheek to thank him for the meal, and Daichi notices the way they hang onto him extra-tight. He can’t not.

He and Suga stay in the kitchen, tidying up and carrying the plates to the sink. Suga is already tying his apron back again to wash them, his beautiful, distracting back to Daichi

Daichi throws a furtive look in the other room, to make sure the kids are where they are supposed to be – he can see their reflection in the TV set, yes, they can’t see him – and comes to stand behind Suga.

Before he can think too much about it, before he can talk himself out of it and stop, he wraps his arms around Suga’s frame and presses their bodies close. His chest against Suga’s back, he feels Suga suck in a breath like it was him who did it, him who got startled into silence.

Daichi waits, for Suga to pull away or maybe – hopefully – relax into his touch, and leaves his hold weak to give him that choice.

And Suga takes it. In the next breath he leans into Daichi and closes his hands around his wrists to turn his hold into a hug, almost into a grip. He turns his face to the side, toward Daichi, and the tip of his nose bumps into Daichi’s chin.

His eyes are clearer than Daichi has ever seen them, honey gold and so, so beautiful.

“What is this for?” he asks. There’s a smile playing on his face.

Daichi smiles back and lets his chin rest on Suga’s shoulder with a relieved sigh. “Just wanted to say thank you for dinner,” he murmurs in the crook of his neck.

Here, so close, close like they’ve never been before, the fragrance of Suga’s body wash – or is it his soap, his shampoo? – hits Daichi so strongly it clouds the rest of his senses. He’s dizzy with it, delicate as it is, it’s so utterly overwhelming.

But maybe that has more to do with their nearness.

Maybe.

“Alright,” Suga says, he sounds as distracted as Daichi feels. Distracted, and yet so painfully aware of his body, of each and every point where they are touching.

“I told the children about my mother,” he adds, out of the blue, after moments of silence. The tips of his fingers are caressing the back of Daichi’s hand and it’s hard for Daichi, to concentrate on anything else that’s not him.

Still…

“It’s alright,” he says.

“It just came up. I was showing them the pictures I took in Miyagi, of my dad and my nana, and they asked why my mother wasn’t there. So I decided to tell them.”

He nuzzles Daichi’s cheekbone and Daichi raises his head from his shoulder to look him in the eyes once again. “It’s alright,” he repeats. “If it felt like the right time for you to do it, then it was.”

“And I seriously doubt a thing like that would cause them to look at you any different.”

Suga shakes his head and his hair flies everywhere around his face. “No, I know that. They are just…they’ve been incredible, to me. They are such amazing children…”

There is so much love shining in his eyes as he says it, Daichi wants to kiss him senseless.

Suga loves Daichi’s children so much, he loves them so much and Daichi…Daichi loves him for this. Daichi loves him for everything.

“I was just worried that, I mean, it’s a difficult subject for kids. That mothers can just leave their kids out of nowhere, isn’t it? So, I don’t know if I might have overstepped-”

“You didn’t.”

_Please don’t worry about it._

“You haven’t.”

Daichi holds him tight to his chest. “I’m glad, I’m so glad you finally feel like you can talk about it. Please don’t, please don’t worry about this.”

“Ok, ok I won’t.”

Suga nods and gives him another smile, smaller and shyer. Daichi looks at it and vows to never forget it – he never will – and presses a kiss in Suga’s hair.

They stay like this for a lifetime, lost in other planes of space and time. When Suga’s phone rings, startling them both apart, Daichi knows that even if it had been this long, it wouldn’t have been enough.

“It’s Tooru, I have to take it…”

Suga disappears in the laundry room with an apologetic smile and an endearing blush on his cheeks. Daichi follows him till he’s disappeared behind the door.

“Yeah, I’m…no, Tooru please. Oh my God, how can you say- his children are in the next room! No! No, yeah, I’ll be home in a half hour. Ok, bye.”

From a soft pink his cheeks are a bright cherry red as he pokes his head back in the kitchen. “I, um, I have to go.”

Daichi nods and bites the inside of his cheek to hide a smirk. “Yeah, um, I heard.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake…”

Suga makes to stomp in the other room to go get his stuff but Daichi stops him with a hand on his wrist. “Actually, Suga…”

“Yeah?”

Clearly he’s waiting for some kind of apology. His lips are pursed in a petulant pout. Well, it’s meant to be petulant at least, Daichi only finds it sexy.

He grins his widest grin. “Can I borrow your phone for a second? I just remembered I need to make a call, for work, you know, and I left mine upstairs…”

Suga nearly throws it in his face and while he’s busy packing up his stuff and saying goodbye to the kids, Daichi looks around in his index and saves a number on his phone.

 

Suga has been gone for five minutes when Daichi finally makes the call.

“Hello, am I speaking to Oikawa Tooru-san? I’m Sawamura Daichi, yes, Suga’s…friend. Listen, I know this might sound strange, as we don’t know each other, but I need your help…”


	23. A case of you, part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meetings and drinks.

Mrs. Devaux runs to him and hugs him to her chest as soon as she sees him through the shop windows. How a woman not a millimeter over 5’2’’ can manage to do that it’s not very clear to Suga, but when she finally lets him go – with a loud, smacking kiss on the cheek – his back is protesting quite a lot.

“Oh dear, it’s so good to have you back,” she murmurs in his ear as she pushes him inside for a cup of tea. “This place gets so dull after so long without your visits…”

Suga smiles at her dramatics and takes a seat on what’s become his stool. “I wish I could say I’m sorry for all the dullness my absence causes but it’s nice to be missed.”

Mrs. Devaux pinches his cheek in faux reproach and hands him a box of cookies. She watches him eat for a while, Suga has gotten so used to her fixed stares he barely pays it any mind anymore, and plays with the hems of her wrap. “So, did you have a good time?” she says at last, tone forcefully vague but eyes alert. “Back at home, I mean.”

Suga nods and forces the cookie down his throat so he can answer. “Yeah it was nice. Very nice. Being with my family, it’s…you know…”

He takes a sip of his tea and attempts a casual shrug. The image of his nana crying on the platform fills every space of his mind, only negative side to his trip. “I miss them.”

“Already?”

The way Mrs. Devaux asks is weird, almost resentful.

Suga looks for her eyes but she averts them. “Yeah, already,” he says. “I always miss them when I’m not there.”

For a moment he thinks he sees her flinch, at his words, at the seriousness of his tone, but the moment later she only has a smile for him. “You are such a sweet boy,” she whispers, and Suga relaxes when he finds no lies in her tone.

“Your…your family is very lucky to have you.”           

“Thanks, but really I’m the lucky one.”

He smiles in his cup of tea, thinking of his father’s unwavering loyalty to him, his acceptance and unconditional love. Of his nana hugging him tight, after he came out to her, and telling him through tears how proud she was for having raised such a brave boy…

“Yeah, I’m very, very lucky.”

He turns to Mrs. Devaux again and sees her regarding him with a mixture of surprise and awe in her eyes. Her bottom lip is trembling.

“What, um, what is it?”

The atmosphere around them is awkward today, like in the beginning of their relationship, when they first met and Mrs. Devaux’s too tender touches made Suga wonder. Tense like it hasn’t been in weeks, in months.

Mrs. Devaux shakes her head and stands, walks through the shelves in search for something. “Nothing, Koushi-kun.”

She takes a vase of white fuchsia flowers and places it on the counter. Mindless of Suga’s eyes on her she rearranges them one by one, even though they looked just fine before.

“You remind me of someone, when you say things like that,” she adds long after the quiet has settled in between them. She says it with a smile, but Suga is not sure if it’s a good thing or not, the sad fondness with which she speaks.

So he asks.

Her smile turns into laughter. “It’s good, it’s very good. She…” – her fingers begin to shake around stems and petals – “she was the person I loved most in the world. And the best one, too.”

“She was the best woman I’ve ever known…”

She.

Mrs. Devaux chances a fleeting look at him, but her eyes never meet his, focused somewhere else.

Suga catches sight of his reflection in the glass of a vase, stunning white roses with their stems still full of thorns, and his hair is a mess on his head, the lights of the shop turn flyway strands white and gold. He tries to force them all flat, but it’s useless. And now it’s clear who exactly Mrs. Devaux was talking about.

_Pure argent._

_My sister had hair just like yours…_

Sometimes Suga forgets that he’s not the only one here who has a _she_ he talks, and even thinks, of in cautious tones.

“But it’s good to hear that…that you had fun. In Miyagi, right? That’s where your family is?” Mrs. Devaux talks in a rush, suddenly her entire body seems to buzz with repressed energy.

Suga nods, and she continues. “Yes, family is important…”

“What about your family then? Are they here?” he asks without thinking much about it.

He never does this, inquire about a person’s family without any kind of prompts. He always dreaded these kinds of questions, for years, from people he barely knew as from close friends or boyfriends. Tensing as soon as a conversation seemed to take in that direction, he’d spend panicky minutes thinking and over-thinking how to answer without really answering, how to avoid the subject without really avoiding it.

And now he did it himself.

But it’s been months, months of knowing each other and Suga still doesn’t know the first thing about this woman.

She is…the only person who knows the full extent of Suga’s feelings for Daichi, she’s the only person he’s had the courage to tell and yet…what does _he_ know of her?

She was married, wasn’t she? Twice, if he remembers well. And she had a sister who she was very close to, but that’s all Suga knows of her. Months spent together, countless hours in this shop or working in the garden, and that’s all she ever told him.

Where did their closeness come from, then? By what is it motivated?

Suga doesn’t take his questions back, but for a moment he wonders if this is what his past boyfriends felt like, being in a relationship with him for months and not knowing, not even imagining the most significant happening of his life.

_No wonder they all gave up…_

_I would have given up too, if I had been in their place._

Mrs. Devaux’s hands freeze, and in the mid of fixing another flower in the vase her fingers nearly snap its stem. “I don’t…have anyone anymore,” she tells him with forced flatness.

Suga’s heart drops inside his chest, and he bites his lip so hard he almost draws blood. “I’m so sorry…”

His stupid, bloody mouth. Why did he have to open his stupid, bloody mouth?

Mrs. Devaux shakes her head, tries to reassure him that it’s fine, everything is fine, he couldn’t have known but she still won’t meet his eyes.

Suga sits still on his stool, doesn’t dare come near to comfort her

After minutes of silence – mortified, never-ending silence – she talks again. “That’s a lie,” she whispers to her flowers, and brings a still shaky hand to her face, “what I just told you…”

She opens her mouth only to close it again. She shakes her head and under Suga’s helpless stare she seems to age ten, twenty years. Never before had she shown the age she declared upon meeting but now Suga can believe this woman has lived nearly eight decades, and spent most of them hurting.

“I do…I do have someone. A niece and…and a grandson of second degree, but I. Well, let’s just say I haven’t heard from them in years…”

“From one of them, at least.”

“I’m sorry…”

There are the only words that come to him. I’m sorry.

“It’s alright, Koushi, it’s alright.”

Mrs. Devaux leaves the flowers to themselves and sits down again, next to Suga. “It’s my fault anyway. After my sister died I…I let everything happen, without caring. I didn’t do enough for…and I let what was supposed to be my family fall apart…”

She is stoic as she speaks, her voice barely wavers, and she looks as old as the earth itself. Every line on her face speaks of sorrow, cracks so deep they threaten to let her fall to pieces. But her back is straight, impossibly so, like the line of her shoulders.

Something tugs at Suga’s brain, a memory maybe, or a thought.

Mrs. Devaux’s eyes turn to him again and something happens, something sparks within their exhausted depths. “I lost so much time. Twenty years, I lost them to a man I loathed when I could have spent them making amend.”

Suga has no idea what she means. He has no idea why she’s looking into his eyes with such startling fierceness, nor why he feels so touched. Why, all of a sudden, he feels the urge to cry.

No. No, he knows why.

He lost years too, wasted them running away from truths he couldn’t handle and poisoning his soul with lies. He remembers what his father said – “You needed to ask when you were ready,” – but how much suffering would he have spared himself if he’d grown thicker skin a lot sooner?

He asks another question, the last. He asks because he has to. “Are you sure it’s too late to make amend now?”

The answer comes quick, from trembling lips. “I’m afraid so, yes.”

Suga reaches out and takes Mrs. Devaux’s hand in his. He squeezes it, tight, as tight as he can without causing her any – more - pain. He wants to tell her he’s sorry again, but in the end he decides against it.

He wouldn’t have had a chance to in any case because after few moments of quiet Mrs. Devaux returns his grip and speaks again. “Actually, Koushi-kun, there’s something I can do to start on it. I need…I need to tell you something…”

Suga nods and waits but all that comes after is the sound of bells and wind chimes tinkling. The door of the shop is pulled open to welcome a customer in.

Mrs. Devaux doesn’t try to talk to him again.

 

 

*

 

Daichi spends half the morning worrying about his meeting with Shimizu-san and the other half celebrating for how it went.

The Arakawa case is all but closed now, and Shimizu-san was so satisfied with him and the work he’s done that she agreed to let Daichi take a day off on Monday.

Monday. Suga’s birthday.

Last night, on the phone with Oikawa-san, they wrote down a couple of ideas for the party and they’d agreed on most things – something quiet, intimate, with few people and good music, good food – but there are many details they need to discuss face to face.

Daichi took some pictures of the house to show Oikawa-san, for the kind of party they want to throw it’d be perfect, he reckons, but of course Oikawa-san has to see for himself. Daichi desperately needs his approval.

For the house, of course. And the party.

The guy is Suga’s closest friend, after all, he’s bound to know his taste.

But at least…well, at least he has the presents ready. Ayame and Kaede are still working on theirs, after much pondering they decided Suga-san deserved more than just a plant and took Daichi’s initial advice at heart: make something personal.

Now they both refused to tell Daichi what exactly they would do but Daichi is confident they’ll finish in time, they promised they’d work on it during the week-end when ‘’you are not around to rush us, dad’’. Ayame’s words, of course. All Daichi did was ask three – he counted, they were three – questions about their ideas and what they were working on and suddenly he’s ‘’nosy’’ and ‘’a pain’’.

If Suga had been there he would have laughed his – gorgeous – ass off, hearing that. Daichi, for his part, was nearly close to tears.

A pain.

He has four years before Ayame officially becomes a teenager and he already has to hear these kinds of slanders against his person.

He’s not a pain. He’s attentive, there’s a difference. He’s the perfect amount of attentive, thank you very much.

He just, he wants this to be perfect. For Suga.

He wants to do something special for him, not just to thank him for all the good he’s done to him, to his children, for how happy he’s made them but also…to show him just how much he means to them. To him. How much he means to Daichi.

That’s all he wants, to make him happy. For his birthday and every other day.

If he had any lingering doubts before, before Suga’s trip to Miyagi, before the storm or that movie marathon – that whole, glorious day spent together – they are all gone now. Because he can still feel the tender warmth of Suga’s body pressed against his own, hours and hours later, he still has his perfume stuck in his brain.

He’d fit in Daichi’s arms so wonderfully, just like he has in his life and Daichi wants to…

Daichi wants him. That’s it.

That’s all.

He sighs as Ennoshita’s voice fills the quiet of his office and tells him he’s going out for lunch. Daichi nods then, when he remembers the guy can’t see him through closed doors, he yells out an ‘alright’ and waits for the squeaking of a chair, the sound of muffled steps growing fainter and fainter.

He waits a bit more, five minutes on the clock, and he leaves too, rushes down the stairs and gets into the surveillance room.

“Hey, guys.”

“Yo, Daichi-san.”

They all eat in silence, too famished and tired to come up with things to say.

Fridays are always brutal.

“I think we need to anticipate drinks night,” mutters Tanaka in his paper box of noodles. Only now Daichi notices the dark shadows under his eyes.

“Why, what happened?”

Tanaka shrugs. It’s Nishinoya who answers for him. “Bad date last night,” he not so quietly whispers in Daichi’s ear, a hand on Tanaka’s shoulder.

“Sorry to hear, man.”

Tanaka shrugs again. “’s alright. Not like I was expecting her to be the one or anything.”

But of course he did, Tanaka always does. He hopes, he sees the best in people and throws himself 100% in every relationship. He’s not one who gives up easily, and it draws Daichi up the walls to see that people are so quick to give up on him.

“It’s her loss,” he says between a bite and another.

“Thanks, Daichi-san. But it’s better this way, I mean it was a bad date for me too. An hour into our conversation I mention I used to play volleyball and what does she say to me? That I don’t look like a volleyball player and that she hates the sport anyway.”

Daichi almost chokes on his sandwich. “She didn’t like volleyball?”

What kind of idiot doesn’t like volleyball? And even more, what kind of idiot says they don’t like volleyball to a former volleyball player?

“I know, right?”

“You are so much better off without her, Tanaka.”

“Totally, Ryuu, I mean, she had a nice ass, no point in denying it, she was hot, but you deserve a lot more than just a nice ass…”

Daichi rolls his eyes and Tanaka imitates him. When Nishinoya makes to speak again, he hurries to say “Please, don’t say I need an excellent ass, Noyassan.”

Nishinoya opens his mouth to protest, then he thinks better and closes it again.

He was totally going to say the excellent ass thing. Daichi doesn’t know why he’s so surprised.

“So anyway, you wanna go have drinks tonight?”

Tanaka nods and throws the empty take-away box in the trashcan. It hits the border of it and bounces back, down on the floor. Tanaka’s eye twitches and he stands with a huff to pick it up. “Yeah, I really need to get smashed tonight.”

At Daichi’s alarmed look he rephrases it. “But I’d be alright with ‘just a little tipsy too.’”

“Well, I’m in. What do you say, Daichi-san?”

Nishinoya fixes his eyes on him and Tanaka does the same. Daichi nods. Yurika is probably already on her way to pick the kids up from school and the meeting he scheduled with Oikawa-san surely won’t take all night.

He just needs to ask Suga if he’d like to come with.

Suga would like to spend a night out with him, wouldn’t he? With him and other people of course.

“You make sure to ask Suga-chan too, eh.”

Daichi starts, and he’s sure he must look like a kid caught with his hands in the cookie jar because now not only Nishinoya is smirking, but Tanaka as well, the gloom from just minutes before quickly forgotten.

“I, um, yeah sure…” Daichi stammers and shoves the last part of his sandwich in his mouth.

“You were just thinking about him, weren’t you?”

_I always am._

“Yeah…”

He takes a long sip of his water, aware of their eyes still fixed on him. “How did you know? Am I that…?”

Obvious. Foolish. In-deep.

Tanaka sits back again and his smirk turns a little softer, almost envious. “Yeah, kind of.”

“Great.”

Seriously, he’s become such a joke…

“It is great, Daichi-san,” Tanaka continues, soft and fierce at the same time. “It’s great, you and Suga-san, what you have. What does it matter if it’s obvious to everybody…”

“…and you get a super dumb face whenever you are thinking about him,” Noya interjects.

“Yeah, what does this crap matter when…whatever there is between you and him is making you this happy?”

Daichi stiffens at Tanaka’s words. Like a punch in the gut, they hit him – hard and true – and make his breath hitch.

Tanaka leans over to him and squeezes his shoulders with firm hands. “I’ll tell you what it matters: nothing. Nothing else matters, Daichi-san.”

He’s right. It doesn’t.

 

 

*

 

Suga doesn’t stay at the shop for too long. He helps Mrs. Devaux tidy up, cuts the stems of more roses and rearranges more flowers on the display by the windows, but soon the silence between them turns weary.

When he leaves, with more apologies on his lips that he can count, she hugs him tight again – tighter than before – but doesn’t try to get him to stay for lunch like she always does.

“I’m sorry, Koushi-kun,” she says in the crook of his neck and something tells him it’s not just her silence of today that she’s sorry for. In her eyes it’s clear she carries with her the weight of many apologies, of many reasons to be sorry.

Suga takes her hand in his and squeezes it softly. Then, with one last look behind his shoulders, he walks away. Almost in a hurry.

He grabs a quick lunch sitting at the counter of a small ramen shop and spends over an hour walking around the streets of the city without direction. He has a meeting with Fukunaga-san in a cafè near Kaede’s school and it’d be pretty pointless to take the train to Meiji only to have to come back here in an hour.

So he wanders.

He passes by Miss Tina’s ice-cream parlor and when he sees it almost empty but for a couple of kids that, judging by how jumpy they look, should be in school he walks in with a smile.

Miss Tina recognizes him immediately and wastes no time lecturing him for not coming back sooner.

“Ever since Dai-chi brought you here I’ve been waiting for your return,” she tells him with quite the dramatic flair.

Suga laughs and apologizes, tries to tell her he’s been busy but she won’t hear it, she’s already contemplating which flavors to have him try.

“Well, let’s see, I love Fior di Latte, I always take this one when I want to treat myself, sì sì, questo quì di sicuro…” she mutters to herself, half in Italian half in Japanese, and takes a nice scoop of sparkling white gelato.

“Now for the other…”

Suga looks at her and stifles laughter against his palm when he sees her skip around the display and shake her head to every flavor she comes across to. “No, this no. Noioso…”

“Too heavy, this one. Nope!”

He doesn’t even try to suggest one himself. If there is one thing he’s learned, being so close to his nana, is to never question an old lady when her creations are involved. You’ll never get out of it with your soul intact.

So he waits.

There are only a handful of flavors left when Miss Tina finally makes her decision. She smacks her forehead for ‘’not thinking of this first’’ and reaches out for a bowl full of rich, brown-colored flavor, covered in hazelnuts – intact and cut in small pieces – and of melted chocolate.

“Here it is, Suga-chan. For you, Fior di Latte and Bacio.”

She hands the cone to him, perfect sight, dripping with more melted chocolate and hazelnuts than necessary. Suga takes it and inside his chest enthusiasm bubbles.

He tries it, freezes for a second, then gives a second lick. This Bacio, hazelnut and chocolate exploding on his tongue, is nothing short of a miracle. “Oh, goodness…”

Miss Tina smirks and leans on the counter, toward Suga. “Good, isn’t it?”

“Suga-chan, do you know what ‘bacio’ means in Italian?”

Suga stops devouring his gelato just the few seconds it takes to shake his head and raises his eyes to meet Miss Tina’s, now alight with a sort of mischief.

“Bacio is our word for kiss.”

Oh.

“Oh…”

Suga looks down at the drops of chocolate staining the back of his hand. He’s beginning to blush, he knows. Licks of flame, embarrassing heat rise from deep into his chest up to his neck and cheeks.

“Uh-uh. A kiss is seductive, it’s the act that starts it all. So of course the flavor named after it has to be just as seductive, don’t you think?” Miss Tina is whispering almost in his ear.

All Suga can do is nod.

She throws her head back and laughs, deep and lovely. When he tries to pay she brushes him off and refuses to take any money. “Consider this a…gift for good luck,” she says.

Suga, with a foot just outside the door, can do nothing else but blush. Even harder, even more obvious than before.

Bacio.

The act that starts it all.

A shiver runs down Suga’s spine, pleasant but perfectly mixed with nerves. It’s been months, months and he’s still waiting for that kiss. He’ll wait another two, three, four months if that’s what it takes.

It’s Daichi, after all.

For him, Suga will wait.

 

His feet carry him by Kaede’s school and he turns to look at the lovely, red-bricked building.

Kaede’s classroom doesn’t give to the gate but it’s comforting, to know he’s there somewhere, close. Suga smiles at the outlines of the drawings stuck on the windows and squints to see if he recognizes some.

There’s a bee, for sure. A mushroom, maybe a squid. More flowers than he can count.

Kaede is somewhere in there, listening to his teacher talk or maybe playing with his friends. Is he waiting for the bell to ring or is he so lost in his thoughts, like he somehow gets, that he hasn’t even noticed how soon it’s going to happen?

Suga smiles, at the building, at the thought, at nothing at all and turns to walk away. Or he would but a body collides with his own, hard and sudden, causing his breath to get caught in his throat.

“Ouch.”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

Suga looks up from the elbow painfully sticking in his side and freezes.

“S-Sugawara-kun…”

“Hello, Yurika-san.”

They stare at each other for a moment, wide-eyed for the surprise then swiftly move away. Suga stands upright and does his best to ignore how much his side is aching, curls his fist around the strap of his bag not to massage the spot Yurika-san ran into.

Man, this woman’s elbows sure are bony…

“I’m sorry, Yurika-san, I didn’t see you…”

“That’s alright, I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going either.”

They nod at the other’s apology and stand there in awkward silence. Why neither of them has excused themselves and walked away, it’s not quite clear.

A high-pitched voice greets Suga and Suga smiles at the mother of one of Kaede’s classmates. She moves past him and squeezes his arm with casual complicity then, at the sight of Yurika-san, moves in for a just as quick kiss on the cheek.

They watch her walk away, toward another group of moms Suga is vaguely acquainted with. Then, all of a sudden, Yurika-san draws in a breath. “Sugawara-kun, you didn’t come here to pick Kaede, did you? I thought Daichi had told you the kids are with me this week-end…”

“Oh, no, it’s fine. I was just walking by…”

Yurika-san smiles a little in relief. “Do you have a commitment around the neighborhood?” she asks and she’s polite, calm in the way she speaks. So different from how she had been at Ayame’s party, she seems genuinely interested. She seems genuine, full stop.

She looks softer too, somehow. Suga doesn’t know her, he is not going to pretend he can read her or the likes, but she looks serene, happier. It’s probably the prospect of spending a week-end with her children, it could be anything at all.

In any case, it’s nice.

Suga smiles back. “Yes, I have a meeting with my advisor in a cafè just across the street.”

Yurika-san turns where Suga vaguely pointed to and nods. “Oh, the one by the corner? Makes excellent coffee.”

“Yes, their muffins are good too.”

Silence falls again, awkward but not as awkward as it could be. Suga counts it as a victory, he never wanted for Yurika-san to dislike him and he never wanted to dislike her as well. He doesn’t.

It’s just…weird, what they are to each other. Especially now that he and Daichi are kind of…

“You are studying for your MA, correct?” she asks, fingers moving nervously but precisely to trace the studs on her leather bag.

“Yes, well actually I’m in the process of writing my thesis. Almost done, really.”

Yurika-san nods and attempts another smile, this one tenser than before. “That’s…congratulations.”

“Thank you, Yurika-san.”

Suga looks at the clock above the doors of the school and sighs. He still has fifteen minutes before he’s supposed to meet Fukunaga-san, but he doesn’t want to be there when Kaede gets out of school. Well, he _wants_ to but if he stays to greet him then he’ll feel guilty because he’s not going to have time to do the same with Ayame. And he’s sure Ayame would be upset if she knew Suga waited for Kaede outside of school but didn’t with her.

“I better get going now,” he tells Yurika-san and after a quick bow he makes to leave.

Yurika-san stops him with a hand in the crook of his arm. “Wait, Sugawara-kun…”

Suga does, as it takes her a moment to say what she means to. “I’m sorry.”

He blinks down at her, dumbfounded. “For what?”

She throws him a look, as if to say ‘’are you really going to make me spell it out for you?’’ but she must read the honest surprise on his face because, unexpected, her own softens. “I’m sorry for the way I treated you, at Ayame’s party. I don’t think I ever said it.”

She didn’t. But…

“You don’t have to, really.”

“No, I…I was very rude to you and it was uncalled for.”

Suga nods and accepts her apology, for as much as he didn’t need it it’s nice all the same. “Thank you. I understand it must have been difficult for you, the situation, I mean.”

She spent months away from her children, months missing them, and she comes back to a complete stranger who gets to spend every afternoon with them, who gets to do all the things she was unable to with miles and miles standing between them. Suga understands, he doesn’t know but he can imagine.

“It’s alright, really. And I never meant” – to take your place – “I was just…” – doing my job? As if. As if it was ever really nothing more than that.

He takes a deep breath. “I care about Ayame and Kaede.”

_I love them._

“I never meant to…step on your toes.”

_I never could anyway._

Yurika-san is staring at him, like she’s never seen him before. “Thank you.”

In that exact moment the bell rings and the first kids start to come out, run into their mother’s arms and chatter, lively and loud.

Suga smiles and makes his way to the cafè by the corner, the one with excellent coffee and delicious chocolate muffins. Before stepping in, he looks back.

Kaede is whispering something to Yurika-san and she is grinning, wide and elated. The slight wind makes their hair move – the exact same shade of black - and she brushes Kaede’s bangs away from his forehead with unbearable tenderness, takes his hand in hers.

They make a perfect picture, so alike, so serene.

Suga averts his eyes.

 

The meeting is brief. Fukunaga-san hands him the papers he needs with a half smile on his face and clasps his shoulder tightly, almost a gesture of comfort.

Suga doesn’t want to think of the expression he might be wearing right now. It’s not about the thesis anyway.

_I could never step on your toes._

_I’m not family. This is not my family._

Kaede’s voice resounds in his ear. _But it could be._

It could be. Is this what Kaede meant? Is this what he wants?

“We are getting there, Suga-kun,” Fukunaga-san tells him. “One last effort.”

Suga nods. One last effort, one last sacrifice.

All for this.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I promised I’d take the kids to the park…”

Fukunaga-san stands and now his smile threatens to split his face in halves. Just at the prospect of spending time with his children. Suga understands too well, he knows how that feels.

Family or not, he knows how it feels. Putting Kaede and Ayame to bed, singing them songs and playing every game in the house, every game he can come up with, taking naps on the couch all huddled close even though there’s more than enough space left to the opposite sides.

Happiness. Joy. Elation.

Suga smiles back. “Of course. Have fun.”

Fukunaga-san nods and pats his shoulder again. “Thank you.”

He disappears around the corner, the flaps of his jacket swaying lightly with his rush.

Suga follows him with his eyes till he’s gone then he sighs. He chugs his cappuccino in two long sips and asks for the check.

The waiter arrives, tall, dark-haired and well-built, if it had been three, four months ago Suga would have thought to himself ‘cute’ and smile his best smile at him. As it is, he doesn’t even notice.

“It was all paid by the man who just left,” he tells Suga with a grin. A grin that’s too wide.

Suga nods and thanks him, when the guy asks if he wants anything more he says no and ignores the suggestive arc of his eyebrow. He leaves in slow steps, today he has nowhere else to be, and hurries back to Meiji.

He drowns himself in books, in the papers Fukunaga-san brought him and in his thesis – so close to being done, so close – and for the next couple of hours he thinks of nothing else at all.

Or at least he tries.

 

When he gets back to the apartment the sky is already tinged pink and purple with dawn, casting dark shadows on the house. Suga walks the street with his eyes firmly cast on the ground and he jumps ten feet in the air at the tall figure that from the opposite side of the ‘’garden’’ approaches.

“Holy f-!” Suga presses a hand to his chest and starts even more as Taka’s voice reaches his ears.

“Suga-san, it’s me!”

Unnecessarily loud.

“Y-Yes I see that now,” Suga says and it comes out breathier than intended.

Fuck that scared him.

“What are you doing, looming around like a creep?”

His question goes unanswered as Taka walks closer to him, and consequently to the door, and shouts. “Suga-san, you’re back!” in direction of the kitchen window.

_What the hell?_

“What the-”

Faint shuffling and cursing, and then more shuffling and again more cursing and suddenly the front door falls open. “Kou-chan!”

Tooru jumps down, skipping the three steps by the entrance, and puts an arm around Suga’s shoulder. “I wasn’t expecting you so early…”

“Early? It’s past seven. How long did you want me to stay locked in the library?”

Tooru doesn’t answer, he probably hasn’t even heard, and leads him inside with a not-so-gentle push on the lower back. That quickly turns into a slap on the ass.

“Hey!”

What the hell is up with these two today?

Not that Tooru is a stranger to butt-slapping – he does it at least three times a week and, to Suga’s knowledge, only to him – actually that was the only normal thing in this bizarre sketch Suga has found himself in the middle of but seriously what the hell?

“There’s a surprise for you, Kou-chan!”

Suga tenses. His birthday isn’t for another three days, what if Tooru called in a stripper? No, Taka would never hang around if that were the case, he’d run faster than you could chant the ‘Go, go, Dateko’ chorus. What if something happened to the house? What if the kitchen exploded because Tooru thought it’d be a good idea to try making chili again? What if…

“Hey, Suga…”

What if Daichi was standing right before his eyes, still in his suit, tie a little crooked and jacket carelessly thrown over his shoulder, with a nervous smile on his face?

Suga blinks. “H-Hi.”

“Sawamura-san was _passing_ _by_ apparently and decided to stop for a visit,” Tooru interjects and not-so-subtly pushes Suga in Daichi’s direction.

“That’s right, a visit,” Daichi stammers. There’s a nervousness in the way he carries himself that has Suga blushing. Because, like we already established, Sugawara Koushi is a pathetic loser.

“Oh…”

“Yeah, um, Tanaka and Nishinoya wanted to grab a few drinks tonight and they asked me to invite you.”

That makes sense, but also not. “You could have called,” Suga tries to reason but wastes no time making his way to him, close enough that he can smell his cologne, but with the pretense of fixing his tie.

It’s such a good sight, Daichi being here, in the disaster area that is his living room. After the pointless drag that has been today, it’s the best sight of all.

Suga drags his fingers down the length of Daichi’s tie and thumbs at the fine fabric, then, painfully aware of everyone’s eyes on him, moves his hands up and tightens the knot. “Here,” he mutters, lame and soft, but not soft enough that the others can’t hear.

“Thanks.”

Daichi is starting to blush too. Suga forces his eyes away from the color of his ears – so endearing – and takes a step back. His eyes fall to the mess of papers on the kitchen table. “What’s all that?”

Daichi coughs, Taka pales, Tooru’s eyes turn alarmingly wide. “Nothing, just…volleyball tactics. Sawamura-san played volleyball too, apparently, and he offered some good insights.”

Suga nods and chooses not to focus on the way Tooru’s voice kept getting increasingly higher with each word. “How long have you been here, Dai?”

Dai. It slips.

Daichi shrugs, so casual it looks forced, but if he’s surprised at the nickname he doesn’t show it. “Just about, um, ten minutes maybe?”

“Yeah, he just showed here asking for you, Kou-chan,” Tooru intones and casually begins to collect the papers on the table. Suga tries to sneak a peek at them but Tooru is careful to cover them with his frame. “I, of course, was the perfect host. Told him he could wait for you here, made some tea…”

At that Suga winces.

Tooru’s tea is…not the best, to say the least. Calling it terrible would be the new understatement of the century. Truth is, it could have easily been the eleventh plague of Egypt, just as horrifying as the thunderstorm of hail and fire.

“I’m sorry for that,” he stage-whispers in Daichi’s ear and Daichi has to pinch the bridge of his nose to suppress a snort. Taka is not nearly as careful and does it outright.

“Hey, I heard that and I will not accept this abuse. My tea is good, it’s purifying and-”

“Sure, sure…”

Suga turns to Daichi again. “So when are we supposed to meet Tanaka and Nishinoya?”

“They said around ten, we always go to a bar near the office. Nishinoya is friends with the owners and they always do us a good price.”

“Ten? Then what are you doing here at seven?”

It’s an easy question, and yet Daichi freezes. “Um…”

He shares a look with Tooru, then with Taka, and subtly shifts to give his back to them both. “Well, I was thinking…”

Behind him Suga can see Tooru smirk.

Daichi coughs, scratches the back of his neck and coughs again. “I was thinking maybe we could go to dinner?”

Go to dinner before meeting with the guys. Go to dinner, together, for three hours just the two of them. Alone together.

Oh…

Suga looks away, down at his feet. He knows everybody is looking at him now. Daichi asked in his quietest tone but the room is small and Tooru and Taka are keeping stubbornly quiet too, for once in perfect silence just so they could hear them. The bastards.

Suga nods at the soles of his shoes, his cheeks colored the brightest red. “Yeah, I’d like that…”

He stares at his supposed closest friends and they both avert their eyes, casual like they’ve been looking around the room the entire time. Like there’s so many things to admire with such concentration in their living room- Tooru is still smirking, annoying and wide, and way too pleased.

Suga bites the inside of his cheek to keep from making his very same expression.

He’s going out with Daichi. Well, it’s just dinner, Daichi probably didn’t mean to make it sound so date-y – _or_ _yes?_ – but still Suga will take it. He will take any chances he gets to spend more time with this man. Alone or in the company of a nine and a four years old, in the middle of a crowd, doesn’t matter.

“I’m just gonna go change…” he mutters back in Daichi’s ear and locks himself in the bathroom, where he bumps his fist up in the air, nearly knocking the shower curtains off their hinges.

 

 

*

 

Daichi follows Suga’s retreating back with his eyes and as the door closes behind him he can’t help a sigh. Maybe it’s better if he goes change, if he were to keep those jeans on Daichi wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything else all night long.

_They hug him so well…_

He sighs again and turns away, only to find three pairs of eyes staring at him with varying degrees of smugness. Yes, even Onyx looks smug. And where did she come from anyway?

Daichi clears his throat and tries to ignore the heat he feels crawling up his face. He just made a complete fool of himself in front of Suga’s flatmates, Suga’s _closest_ _friends_ (and cat), that’s great. Good job, Daichi.

He kneels on the floor and beckons Onyx close, the only person he knows won’t betray him and tell all of his faux pass. She comes to his arms running and snuggles his chest as he lifts her up.

“Hey, darling, where have you been?”

For some reason that has both Oikawa-san and Aone-san freezing. Oikawa-san looks around himself, like he’s expecting a wild boar to appear from behind the couch, and he has a hand steady on the back of a chair, ready to jump on it at even the slightest noise.

Aone-san is looking too but except for his eyes the rest of him stays frighteningly still.

“What-”

“If she has taken another rat inside the house I swear I’m moving,” Oikawa-san mutters, somehow both somber and hysterical.

“She takes rats inside the house?”

Daichi starts to look around too.

“Maybe she ate it outside?” Aone-san tries to reason and after five minutes of nothing they all take a deep breath and accept his hypothesis as the truth.

“My hair is going to turn white one of these days…” Oikawa-san hisses after letting himself fall on the chair in relief. Then he springs up again and goes through the papers he collected in a pile on the table.

“Here, Tacchan, while you were standing guard outside me and Sawamura-san decided on some stuff, see if you like…”

Aone-san nods at most things but frowns at others, namely the cake Daichi and Oikawa-san picked.

“Exotic fruits?” he echoes to Oikawa-san’s chirpy – but quiet – announcement. “I don’t know about this…”

“What? Why? It’s perfect for the occasion! It’s fresh, it’s light, it’s summer-y!”

“Yeah, maybe but Suga-san always says sweets with fruit taste fake…”

“What?”

“Yeah, I think we should go for chocolate. Maybe a chocolate cheesecake, with a little chili…”

Onyx meows in Daichi’s arms and immediately he switches sides. “Yeah, I think Aone-san is right…”

Oikawa-san regards him with betrayal shining brightly in his eyes.

“Not too much chili, but that does sound like something Suga would like more…or maybe something with passion fruit!”

At that both Oikawa-san and Aone-san brighten. “Passion fruit is perfect.”

“Maybe we could get both. A cheesecake with passion fruit and a classic chocolate sponge?”

“Chocolate sponge is something I can do myself, so we’d only have to buy the other one,” Aone-san interjects.

“Oh, yeah that’s good. Excellent.”

“What is?”

All three start, hunched down on the sample menu for Suga’s surprise party they hadn’t even noticed Suga stepping out of the bathroom.

Damn it, they gotta get better at this secrecy thing or…

The thought dies quick in Daichi’s brain as he takes in the picture Suga makes. Just stepped out of the shower and in only a thin bathrobe that leaves his calves bare, Suga has every thought that is not about him die.

If Daichi were attached to monitors all his vital lines would be flat.

Holy shit…

“Nothing, just, the weather outside! Excellent,” Oikawa-san says and with a flourish of his hand he points at the spotless sky outside the window.

Suga raises an eyebrow at him and nods, slowly.

A water drop breaks free from the tangle of his eyelashes and falls to the dark beneath his eye. Daichi follows its path down the line of Suga’s cheek and down to caress a freckle near his nose. It stops on the bow of Suga’s upper lip, lingers there for a moment, trapped by the pronounced pout of his mouth and then finally finds its place, solace in the wonderful fullness of Suga’s bottom lip.

Suga licks it away and Daichi nearly drops the cat to the floor.

Aone-san puts a hand on Onyx’s butt to prevent that from happening. Daichi has never been more grateful to a man, except for maybe Suga’s father, who gifted him with such a lovely sight…

“Tooru, can you come for a moment?” Suga tells Oikawa-san and just like he appeared he walks away, with Oikawa-san in tow and locking his bedroom door behind him.

Daichi does not think about how he’s getting undressed right on the other side, undoing the knot on his robe and letting it slip down his shoulders, his waist, his legs…

“Sawamura-san?” A voice from miles away calls him, times and times again.

“Yes?” Daichi blinks at the tall man by his side – Aone-san, right – and pointedly ignores the twinkling in his eyes.

“I think you should take these papers with you. Lying around here Suga-san is bound to notice them…”

Daichi nods and does as the guy says, shoves them all in his briefcase with one hand while the other still holds Onyx up. She is currently trying to climb on his shoulder.

Aone-san helps him keeping the bag steady. “Suga-san is very important to me,” he says when they are done, nothing in the inflection of his voice but matter-of-fact honesty. “He’s a great person.”

Daichi stares up – very high up – at him and senses the importance of the words, even though Aone-san is not managing very well in conveying it. “I know, he’s…” – amazing, extraordinary, beautiful inside like he’s on the outside, and even more if that’s possible – “Suga is wonderful,” he settles on at last.

Words deep enough, beautiful enough to describe Suga have yet to be invented anyway.

Aone-san nods back, and the imperceptible crease between his brows disappears. “Good. So don’t hurt him.”

The meaning is clear, even unsaid, completely untouched.

_Don’t hurt him. I saw the way you were looking at him. Don’t fuck it up._

_Or else…_

“It’s the last thing I want to do, hurting Suga.”

Aone-san hints a smile and moves away. The conversation is over, there’s nothing else, nothing more to be said. Daichi smiles back. It’s good to see, that Suga has people who care about him so deeply. That he has a solid support system, friends who love him.

Suga deserves that, Suga deserves everything.

Just as Daichi is thinking it Suga appears, fully dressed and a little pink in the cheeks. His hair is messy as usual, his bangs tucked behind the ears so the beauty mark near his left eye is visible.

“Hey, sorry it took me so long,” he says with a small smile that’s on this side of shy.

“I-It’s alright,” Daichi stammers, he has to try twice to get the right words out.

Suga looks wonderful and Daichi’s throat has gone completely dry. Dark jeans that hug his legs, a simple shirt with a wide neck that falls lightly on his shoulder to reveal his collarbones. And that smile, Daichi could look at it all day. That smile.

They make their way to the door, until Suga stops to stare pointedly at him. “You want to take Onyx to dinner with us, Dai?”

Dai.

It takes a moment for the words to register. Daichi looks down, where Onyx is staring deep into his eyes, snuggled in his arms. “Oh, yeah, better not…”

He puts her down, to her obvious chagrin, and steps outside with Suga, who is laughing loud and breathless.

Hurt him…

Daichi will do his darned best to keep that smile on Suga’s face, and be the reason for it, maybe, hopefully. If Suga will let him.

Suga takes his arm and drags him away, but as soon as they pass the corner his hand moves down lower and closes around his wrist. Daichi looks at him and makes their palms meet, their fingers intertwine.

Suga’s smile widens, bright enough it could overshadow the sun, so beautiful it makes Daichi’s heart stutter.

 


	24. A case of you, part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drinks and...more drinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Carole, who's been having a hard time lately. I hope this cheers you up at least a little, I love you.

Dinner is nice, more than nice actually. Sitting at the smallest table in the restaurant Suga’s knee keeps brushing against Daichi’s inner thigh and the smile Suga pairs it with tells Daichi it’s never really an accident.

He sips his wine and pretends to ignore it, then, with the excuse of inching closer to the table, hooks their ankles together.

Suga’s eyes turn soft, softer still than they’ve been all night, twinkling gold and copper and crinkled in approval.

“So, you’re almost done with the thesis, uh? How does it feel?”

Suga picks at a carrot on his plate. Under the lights of the restaurant it’s clear he’s tired. “Good, I think. But…I don’t know I guess I’ll feel in the mood to celebrate only once I have that certificate in my hands, that says in clear letters ‘’Sugawara Koushi we recognize that you busted your ass off for this, now hang it on your wall and go get drunk for a week’’…”

Daichi snorts and nearly gets wine up his nose. “Yeah, that’s exactly what my BA certificate said too.”

“Wait, universities already existed when you were my age?”

“Absolutely, I mean sure my BA certificate was carved into stone with a scalpel but it’s still valid. And also cooler to show to people.”

“Yeah, I can picture it ‘’hey you guys look at my name on this giant ass rock’’…”

They laugh and it’s stupid, and because they are aware of how stupid this is they laugh even harder, so loud the couples sitting near their table turn to stare with annoyed quirks to their eyebrows or an amused smile on their face.

Daichi ignores both kinds and looks at the man in front of him instead. “You look nice tonight,” he says and sits back to enjoy the blush spreading fast on Suga’s cheeks.

“Thanks, y-you too…”

“Actually I feel a little underdressed next to you,” Suga continues and jerks his chin in direction of Daichi’s suit, the same he went to work with this morning. When Oikawa-san called to tell him to come by quick to discuss the party before Suga got home, clothes and changing were the last things on his mind.

Plus, he has a feeling Suga likes the way he wears suits, if the way his eyes are roaming appreciatively over his form is any indication. Following the line of his shoulders then down to his chest they lower to follow, at last, the fabric stretched tight around Daichi’s bicep. And in doing so his eyelashes fan out, cast shadows on the expanse of his cheeks and Daichi has never seen a lovelier sight.

“We are heading nowhere fancy…” he reassures him and the corners of Suga’s mouth quirk into a teasing grin.

“Aw, really? So you dress the fancy man but don’t play it?”

“Suga, I honestly don’t understand a word you say sometimes…”

Suga’s rebuttal is lost on the waiter bringing the main course and before all that goodness they both lose themselves.

“You sure were hungry, Sugawara…”                                   

“There’s jus on your chin, Sawamura.”

“Wha- oh just call it sauce!”

“You were thinking to yourself that you are not having juice to drink, weren’t you?”

“S-shut up.”

Suga laughs in his plate and very nearly chokes on his peas. “What is it with you making me choke on my food?” he wheezes once he’s finally managed to gulp it all down. “The banana the other morning, now this…”

“And you want me to take you somewhere fancy…”

“At least I would choke on some ten thousand yens worth of caviar…”

“Yeah, so I think I’m never going to take you out again.”

_As if…_

Suga rolls his eyes at him, of course he’d never give any weight to such a blatant lie, and keeps arguing, because if Suga is not the one who gets to speak the last word the thought of it will keep him up at night. “Actually…”

“Actually,” Daichi echoes and smiles when he sees Suga raise his finger like he wants permission to speak in a crowded classroom.

“ _Actually_ , I never asked you to take me anywhere fancy, you were the one who made it up.”

Daichi does a quick, mental review of their conversation and curses as he realizes Suga’s right. He doesn’t say it though, Suga is already looking too chipper about this.

“I, unlike some people, have acknowledged and accepted that I’m not fancy on the inside, therefore I know best than to act like it.”

“Then why do you talk like you swallowed a dictionary of pretentiousness.”

“Because I may be a broke college student, but I’m a brilliant, broke college student.”

Suga smirks and his dimples show and before him Daichi can do nothing else than surrender. He already did anyway, months ago. He never stood a chance against this man.

They share a dessert, a creamy, delicious tiramisù that Suga keeps trying to pull more on his side of the table. They battle with their forks, causing more looks from the middle-aged lady sitting at Suga’s right and Daichi wins the very last bite.

He eats half of it and what is left of the mascarpone cream and perfectly imbued ladyfinger he feeds it to Suga. Who, caught by surprise, gets some of it on the tip of his nose.

“I can’t believe you did that,” Daichi mutters, half embarrassed half amused.

“And I can’t believe what you just tried to do…” Suga whispers back, a smile already playing on his lips. He catches the cream with his fingertip and licks it off under Daichi’s stare and even has the nerve to wink at him when he notices Daichi gaping.

_Absolute minx…_

And just like that it’s time for the check. They ask for the waiter to bring it to them and as soon as he’s gone Suga caresses the back of Daichi’s hand to get his attention.

Like he ever really lost it tonight.

“Hey…” he says, and Daichi only has eyes for the shape of his lips.

“Hey?”

“Would you…I mean, Yurika-san has the kids this week-end so I was thinking maybe…maybe we could do something, you and I…”

Together, alone.

He bites his bottom lip, till bright pink becomes white, and Daichi looks at the picture he makes, quickly reddening on the cheeks and ears, the lights casting shadows on the line of his cheekbones he looks like a painting in a museum. A masterpiece, standing out alone on an anonymous white wall, that’s not empty, not at all, but it could be with all the attention Daichi refuses to give to anything else.

Suga is looking into Daichi’s eyes, nervous and a little hopeful, and Daichi’s heart skips a beat. He bites back his ‘yes,’ knee-jerk reaction to a thing he’s been waiting months for, and sighs.

“I can’t, I’m sorry…”

He really can’t and he’s more sorry than words can express. The tents and the lights are all coming tomorrow, and so are the tables. On Sunday he has the menu to take care of and on Monday…well, he took a day off for a reason. And sadly that reason is not spending the whole day with Suga and trying to find out exactly how many moles he has on his back, how many freckles.

Suga retreats, just a little, away from him and his cheeks turn even redder. “Of course, I…I understand…”

Daichi moves in time to catch his fingertips and holds them firmly in his. “I really want to, believe me I do but I promised my mother I would help her move some furniture around the house…”

It’s the lie he and Oikawa-san agreed to tell Suga if something like this were to occur. Daichi hates that he has to use it, he hates that he has to say no. Fuck, he can’t believe he’s saying no to this…

“But maybe you could…you could come by on Monday?” he tries and Suga seems to relax once again.

“I know you’ll be spending the day with your father but just a few minutes…”

He strokes the back of Suga’s hand, his knuckles, with a thumb and watches the way Suga softens, shy still but not uncertain or nervous anymore. “Just for a few minutes, so that the kids and I can give you our presents,” he pushes.

“Oh, I told you you didn’t have to get me anyt-”

“Yeah, alright, sure. But you’ll come?”

“Of course.” Suga doesn’t make him wait for the answer. “Of course I’ll come. I’ll have to bring my dad…”

“That’s fine.”

More than fine, it’s perfect. It’s exactly how they planned it. “It’d be nice to finally meet him.”

The bill arrives, their hands move apart and reach out to take it. The way Suga is smiling at him now, small and pleased around his glass of water is intoxicating. The shadow of his eyelashes turns his eyes copper and brown, so clear Daichi can see himself reflected in them.

“Don’t look at me like that…” he whispers and pretends to play with the check just to try and calm down the rhythm of his heart. But it’s no good, doing that, if first he doesn’t learn how to look away from _him_.

“Me? What about you?”

Suga’s smile turns wider. “If I can’t, then you shouldn’t be allowed to look at me like that either…”

It’s a perfectly fair, sound argument. Problem is, Daichi doesn’t know how to stop.

 

They walk to the bar they are supposed to meet Tanaka and Nishinoya to and their shoulders brush with every step. It’s just a few blocks away, a ten minutes walk top, but Daichi leads them through the park and ten minutes turn to twenty-five.

Suga throws him knowing glances whenever they take unnecessary turns but he never brings it up. “I saw Yurika-san today,” he says instead and Daichi nearly stumbles on a root.

“You did? Where?”

“On my way to a meeting with my advisor, it was near Kaede’s school, I walked into her by the front gate. Literally.”

Great. Just great. She didn’t mention it earlier on the phone.

Daichi takes a deep breath. “And was she…”

Nice to you?

Of course she wasn’t. If she had been she would have brought it up. Damn it, he’s been saying it for months, that she has to try, make at least a teeny tiny effort to be nicer to Suga, get to know him so she’ll see for herself how wonderful…

“Yes, she was nice. She even apologized to me for how she…well, for the way she acted at Ayame’s birthday.”

Wait, what?

Daichi turns to face Suga, so sudden his neck gives a painful twitch. _Yurika_ _apologized…_

Suga brings his hands up and hurries to add “I tried telling her it wasn’t necessary, I mean, I know why she was acting the way she did so it’s not like, like I was offended or anything…”

“Of course she had to apologize!”

Daichi’s voice echoes in the air. “She should have done it months ago!”

“Oh…”

“I understand that she was upset, that our situation is not the best for her but she had no reason to take it out on you that way, especially considering how much good you are doing to the kids…”

Daichi hesitates and chews on these words before saying them. “And how much good you are doing to me.”

Suga’s eyes seem alight from the inside, that’s how bright they are shining. “Oh,” is all he says, again, and the moon peeking through the low branches of the trees catches the shadow of dimples at the angle of his mouth.

“Not that…that Yurika would care about that of course, but…”

Daichi takes a step forward, then another till his chest is brushing against Suga’s with every breath he takes. “You make me forget how it was, before you.”

Suga sighs, more than a little shaky, and his hands come to tug at Daichi’s shirt, to pull him even closer. “And how’s that?”

Laughter, breathless on Daichi’s lips. The scent of flowers, a spring breeze blowing tenderly around them. “From the little you remember, of course.”

Dull. Boring. Stale.

And lonely. So, so lonely.

Daichi smiles. “Not as good,” he says, understatement and truth, and cups Suga’s cheek in his palm. His thumb moves to trace the mole beneath Suga’s eye. He wishes he could see it through the blue of the night.

He wishes he could see the expression Suga is wearing, if it’s expectant, if it’s nervous. But the way his body is melting against Daichi’s own is answer enough of how he feels, the way he angles his face clue to what he wants Daichi to do.

It’s the same way Daichi feels, the same thing Daichi wants.

Him. A kiss and then countless more. Till their lips are sore and on their minds nothing else but…

_(A life together.)_

Daichi moves closer – closer still, there is nothing left between them, no space, no air - and lowers his face, just a little, just enough that…

“Yo, Daichi-san! Suga-chan!”

He is going to murder Nishinoya Yuu. Slow and painful, and hide his body where no one will ever find it.

Suga sighs, almost on his lips, almost but not quite, and moves away. He stamps a smile on his face and even attempts a friendly wave. Daichi doesn’t even bother.

His glare makes Nishinoya flinch.

“I told you to keep quiet!” Tanaka hisses in his ear and the look he throws first at Daichi then at Suga is nothing short of apologetic.

Suga takes his arm and walks to the bar with him, leaving Daichi and Nishinoya behind. When Nishinoya’s pained yelp echoes in cool air of the park Daichi sees his shoulders shake with laughter.

“Ow Daichi-san! What was that about?”

Daichi hits Nishinoya again. If the guy is too stupid to figure it out then he deserves many, many punches more.

 

The bar is crowded, the space between the counter and the few tables near the far side wall is packed with people dancing, people who are trying their best at dancing, people who are trying their best to grind against other people, and people who are simply standing there and looking, a drink wobbling dangerously in their hand.

“Awesome!” Nishinoya proclaims, still rubbing the spot where Daichi hit him. He waves almost frantically at the bartender, a tall guy with a blond Mohawk, and forces himself past the wall of people by the entrance.

Tanaka grabs Suga’s wrist, Suga grabs Daichi’s and after much pushing and cursing and getting elbows stuck in delicate areas they finally find a little space by the counter. Well, Nishinoya does.

He plants his elbows on chipped wood and orders for them all, then he turns toward them again and whispers something in Tanaka’s ear.

Tanaka nods and it doesn’t escape Daichi, the slight color on his cheeks.

“Ok, Ryuu will stay here and wait for our drinks…” Nishinoya tells them then, forcing his voice quiet like Daichi has never heard it before. “We are going to look for a table in the back.”

And they find it, like Nishinoya knew they would. “I just said that so Ryuu could have a moment with Tora,” he admits once they are seated, a smirk on his face.

If only he had been this considerate just a few moments ago…

Suga elbows Daichi in the side and when their eyes meet he winks. “You are going to scare these nice people away with that scowl…”

He reaches out and pulls the corner of Daichi’s mouth up with a finger. “Cheer up, captain,” he says in a whisper and just as Daichi is about to rebut – an admittedly very childish ‘’I don’t wanna’’ – he leans toward him and presses a quick kiss on his cheek.

“Oh-oh, the night just started and you already got to second base, Daichi-san!”

Suga chuckles, low and breathy in the crook of Daichi’s neck and Daichi rolls his eyes, just to show how annoyed he still is. But that’s all that is, a show. Covered by the shadow of their booth Daichi passes an arm around Suga’s waist.

“So, Tanaka and this Tora guy…?” Suga asks to fill the silence and Nishinoya smirks.

“They go way back, but nothing really happened. I’m trying to change that.”

Daichi sighs. He knows all too well what Nishinoya’s meddling can cause, after all he was the one who introduced Daichi and Yurika back in college and the one who not so quietly pushed him to act on his attraction for Mai. “Don’t…try too hard though, Noya. Tanaka is not like you, he’s not as…straight-forward, he is not just looking for flings…”

“I know, Daichi-san, I know.”

“Then don’t force him into things he’s not sure he wants!”

Nishinoya leans forward, the crease of his brows tells he’s ready to argue but Suga pinches him on the arm, hard, and gestures to the tent that gives to the back room where Tanaka has appeared, jostling four drinks in his hand.

Daichi hurries to him and helps him settle everything on the small table. “Here, Tora told me to just take the whole bottle with me…” he says and pushes it in Nishinoya’s direction.

“Tora’s a good man,” Nishinoya mutters back and empties his glass in one long gulp.

Tanaka drowns his own just so he won’t have to answer.

Suga and Daichi share a look, clink their glasses together and do the same.

 

“Four languages? That’s insane, I bare-barly speak Japanese…”

Nishinoya turns to tug at Daichi’s arm with a conspiratorial look in his eyes. “Did you know, Daichi-san?”

“What? That Suga speaks four languages? Of course…”

He’s not sure why Nishinoya is so fascinated by this.

“Amazing!” Nishinoya cheers, so loud in Daichi’s ear he jumps nearly off of his stool. “You are amazing, Suga-chan! Smart and beautiful, amazing!”

“Say something in another language, Suga-chan!” Tanaka echoes, not nearly as drunk as Nishinoya yet but well on his way to.

Suga takes another sip of his drink and licks drops of vodka off his lips. Daichi follows the gesture with his eyes and starts at the hand coming to rest on his thigh, high, really high on his thigh.

Suga makes a show of hoisting himself up on his stool but once he’s settled his hand remains.

“Alright, let’s see,” he sing-songs, careful to never meet Daichi’s gaze, “what do you want me to speak? Chinese, French, German or English? I also know some Italian and a little Spanish…”

“French!”

“Defini- um, French for sure. The language of lo-o-ove.”

“You are so full of it, Noyassan.”

Suga’s thumb is drawing circles on the fabric of Daichi’s slacks, pressing on the muscles of his inner thigh, once lightly, then harder, without rhythm or pattern, so Daichi doesn’t know what to expect next, if a tender caress or a pointed pressure that causes shivers down his spine.

He sits straight on his stool, fists clenching tightly on his knees, and he’s all too aware of how short and shallow his breathing has gotten.

Suga turns a little in his direction, and his eyes are hooded, darker than Daichi has ever seen them. “Something in French, uh? Well, let’s see…”

“Je souhaite que nous ètions seuls en ce moment, pour que je puisse embrasser vos lèvres…”

Silence falls around the table, silence falls everywhere and all Daichi can hear, along – in sync – with the beating of his heart is Suga’s voice, the way his tongue rolls around the ‘r’s and the lilt in the vowels.

“Si nous ètions seuls in ce moment je voudrais tracer la colonne de votre col avec ma bouche, et adorer la ligne de votre machoir.”

Suga will not look away from him and Daichi feels dizzy with it, with everything that is being said between them, with everything that’s not.

“Je voudrais sucer des bleus sur ta buste et vous dire combine je vous veux, pour combien de temps je vous ai voulu. Combien je t’ai-”

And suddenly Suga stops. He looks away from Daichi and down to his empty glass and fills it once more.

Daichi swallows nothing, his skin feels on fire. Suga moves his hand away and he’s not quick enough to catch it.

Tanaka and Nishinoya are blinking at them, jaws hanging loose and eyes a little more alert than before. There’s a blush spreading on Tanaka’s cheeks.

“Holy shit that was…”

“Hot.”

“Really, really hot.”

Nishinoya moves closer to Suga and whispers in his ear – loud enough they can probably hear him all the way through Australia – “That was all dirty stuff what you just said, wasn’t it?”

Suga is blushing too now but he shakes his head with conviction and even pinches Nishinoya’s arm as a way to get him to behave. “No, that was my shopping list, that’s all. You know, carrots, mushrooms, flour…”

For all Daichi and the others know about French it could very well be what Suga just said but none of them believe it. And it’s obvious Suga doesn’t expect them to.

Still, he wishes he knew what Suga just said. To him, he was talking to him. For sure and not just hypothetically, not just a vague idea born from the way Suga had been looking at him the entire time.

He wants to know for sure, hear it all, because it’s important. The way Suga interrupted himself, that’s important.

_Combien je…_

What?

Daichi lets out a shaky sigh and fills his glass once more, then he stands on even shakier legs to get himself some water. If the others all plan on getting shit-faced then there’s gotta be at least one of them to remember the way home. Besides, tomorrow waits more planning to do and a hangover doesn’t go hand in hand with getting things done.

He shouts for the water and Mohawk throws a bottle at him and gives him the thumbs up. Daichi nods, doesn’t try to attempt a smile and gulps some of it down before walking back to his friends.

He moves the tent and sneaks inside the back room, where the lights are low and everyone is whispering and stops still when he sees a tall, blond guy he doesn’t recognize talking to Suga, a drink in one hand and the other resting on the back of Suga’s chair.

Suga catches his eyes and Daichi makes his way to him as if in a daze.

“Sorry but, like I already said, I’m with someone…” Suga is saying, to the guy but looking only at Daichi.

_I’m with you._

And he is.

Suga is with him.

The guy turns around to follow Suga’s gaze and stares Daichi up and down. Daichi lets him.

“He with you?” this complete stranger asks and Daichi sees the line of Suga’s mouth turn tense with irritation. He doesn’t like his words being ignored, he doesn’t like people who feel the need to ask others about how he feels and what he wants.

Daichi doesn’t bother answering, he just hops back on his stool and takes another sip of his water.

The guy still doesn’t leave. In fact he moves closer. “Just asking ‘cuz hey, I’m more than open to a threesome…”

The water nearly goes up Daichi’s nose.

Tanaka and Nishinoya, who’ve been uncharacteristically quiet so far, nearly fall down their seats at the bout of hilarity that catches them by surprise. Suga, for his part, just rolls his eyes and mutters a ‘no, thanks’.

“Dude, these two haven’t even fucked yet and you are asking for a threesome?” Nishinoya howls and beats his fist on the table.

Finally this seems to be enough to get the guy to leave but for the second time in the matter of hours Daichi is contemplating homicide and this really, really isn’t good for his blood pressure.

Neither is the next question Nishinoya asks.

“You ever had a threesome, Suga-chan?”

Suga blushes to the root of his hair and takes a long, long sip of his drink. It’s answer enough and Daichi’s head is exploding with the images that are coming with it.

 

“So when…when did you…”

They have moved to the front of the bar, near the counter to watch people dance – that’s the official version, the real reason is to get Tanaka closer to the Mohawk guy – but Daichi is still fixed on that one answer Suga failed to give.

“I mean it’s, _when_?”

Suga smirks at him from the rim of his glass. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes are a little hazy, a little out of focus, in a way that suggests he’s finally starting to feel the drinks he had. Took quite a while, Nishinoya and Tanaka are pretty much wasted, if the way they are dancing is any indication.

“Come on Daichi-san!” Nishinoya screams every two minutes, a plea for Daichi to join. As if. When there’s dancing involved Daichi never joins.

Nishinoya should have learned that by now.

Daichi ignores him – again – and watches the bob of Suga’s throat as he takes another sip of his drink. Before he can blink he’s pressing close to him, nose in the crook of Suga’s neck, trying his hardest not to bite down on soft, tender flesh.

“Why do you care so much?” Suga murmurs in his ear and shifts so Daichi has more room to move, more of him to explore.

“I don’t know,” Daichi says, and it’s true. He doesn’t know why he cares, it’s not like it matters anyway, but he can’t let it go. “I just never pictured you to…”

“It was with Tooru. Tooru and his boyfriend, Hajime.”

Oikawa-san.

Suga had sex with Oikawa-san?

Daichi forces himself away from the tantalizing scent of Suga’s skin.

“It’s not like that,” Suga says, slow. He caught it, the nervousness in Daichi’s gaze. “I was…it was after I broke up with my boyfriend, the one who cheated on me?”

Daichi nods.

“I wasn’t feeling very confident in that period, you know? And they…well, they thought it’d be a good way to cheer me up.”

“Did it work?”

Suga shrugs and leaves his half full glass on the counter, pushes it away from him. “It was nice, more than nice but no, it didn’t work.”

“It was hot and I liked it but it was only a distraction. At the end of…at the end of it all I was still alone, in my bed, and my boyfriend had still cheated on me, making a complete fool of me for months…”

He turns to look at Daichi again and smiles, surprisingly brilliant. “But I wouldn’t say no to another, say, starring you and John Cho?”

_Now that’s the alcohol talking._

Daichi throws his head back and laughs. “John Cho, really?”

“What, he’s hot!”

Suga raises a hand to trace the dip of Daichi’s collarbone. His fingers are wet with the condensation covering his glass, coming in contact with the heat of Daichi’s skin they cause him to shake.

“Not as hot as you, though, Daichi-san,” Suga whispers in the corner of his mouth and so close the smell of alcohol lingering on Suga’s tongue is overpowering.

Daichi takes a deep breath and moves away.

_Not like this._

_Not after we waited so long for it._

Suga lets him, his eyes have turned alert once again. It’s hard to tell with him, just how affected he is, how many of the things he says and does are consequences of the dozens of drinks he’s had. Daichi doesn’t trust himself to know the difference.

And this is not how he wants _it_ to happen.

He takes another sip of his water and when Nishinoya comes crashing down on them and asks Suga for a dance he nods and tells Suga to go, sits back on the stool and looks at them.

At him. He can never take his eyes away from him.

He and Nishinoya attempt a sort of boogie-woogie in the middle of the ‘’dance floor’’ but soon Nishinoya loses himself in the rhythm and crunches down again to show off his break-dance moves. That’s how he calls them at least, Daichi has a whole other name for them: tiresome displays of stupidity.

Suga looks at him for a moment, with wide, mildly concerned eyes, then Tanaka appears and takes him by the waist, away from Nishinoya’s flailing limbs and into a slow-dance of sorts.

Suga laughs at something Tanaka whispers in his ear and steps closer to him so they are almost chest to chest. It only takes them a couple of attempts to sync their steps and mirror each other with ease. Suga steps forward, Tanaka steps back, Tanaka shimmies forward, Suga shimmies back and with every move they are laughing.

The music turns slower and Suga makes Tanaka spin. Tanaka tries a dip and nearly drops Suga on the floor. Daichi springs to his feet when that happens but they both wave him away. After that, they decide to keep it simple.

Daichi looks as they move in even closer and Tanaka’s hands fall – chastely high – on Suga’s waist. And Suga…

Suga begins to move, really move, and all the air gets sucked out of Daichi’s lungs.

He follows the beat of the music with his hips, first slow, almost imperceptible, like the tapping of a foot, then the bass drops and the slow shifting becomes a sensual swaying. Harder and harder, as the music gets louder and louder, Suga rocks his hips, from side to side, then rolls them in a grind, not close enough to touch Tanaka but angled to perfection in Daichi’s line of sight.

He becomes music and teases Daichi with a crescendo that will not come. The beat stays the same till the end and Suga respects it with lazy purpose, he turns his face just enough that the next song he dances it with Daichi’s eyes locked in his. On him.

Only on him. There is no one else.

A guy or two step in and ask Suga for a dance, some don’t even bother asking but Suga waves them all away with a resolute shake of his head. He stays glued to Tanaka’s side, his eyes only ever to Daichi, and he whispers things that have Tanaka blushing like a middle schooler.

The creaking of yielding glass reaches Daichi’s ear and suddenly a hand pries his own open.

“If you break it you pay for it, dude.”

Daichi looks away from perfect eyes just long enough to see who’s talking. The guy with the Mohawk, who’s staring just as intently in the same spot Daichi is.

“Who the hell is the guy dancing with Ryunnosuke?” he asks, rough and more than a little spiteful.

“Suga,” is all Daichi answers with.

“Oh, I see.” The guy’s tone changes. Nishinoya must have told him about Suga, Nishinoya tells everybody about everything and Suga has become one of his favourite subjects as of lately. “Looks like he’s trying to tell _you_ something…”

“I know.”

_I know exactly what he’s trying to say._

Suga passes an arm around Tanaka’s shoulders.

We _could be doing this, if you weren’t so busy sitting still._

More whispering and Tanaka throws a look past Daichi’s head, to the Mohawk guy standing just as still behind him.

_We could be doing this naked._

Suga’s shirt has ridden up in the quiet frenzy of his dance, just enough to reveal the dimples at the base of his spine and Daichi has to close his eyes at the sight.

The images still come. Images of Suga, naked in Daichi’s bed, blue bed sheets getting caught in lovely ankles. Suga, red in the cheeks and panting against Daichi’s mouth. Suga pushing Daichi close, making space for him between his legs, letting him in. Suga above him, head thrown back in pleasure, looking so beautiful and bright it hurts Daichi’s eyes.

Images upon images of everything Daichi wants to do to him, with him. Alone in Daichi’s bed, in the quiet of the night and in the light of day, together like the places where their bodies are joined, pressed, in contact, are the only thing that matters.

“Daichi?”

He jumps at the sound of Suga’s voice, so close he feels it on his skin.

He opens his eyes again and Suga is here, red in the cheeks and out of breath, staring at him with impossible calmness. “Take me home, please…”

The words are enough to make Daichi’s heart give a painful start in his chest but the way Suga is asking is not the right one.

They say goodbye quick, Suga drags Tanaka by the counter and winks at him when Mohawk immediately appears to get him some water. Nishinoya waves at them from the centre of the crowd of bodies and they decide not to disturb his fun and simply let him be.

The fresh air of the night – very, very late night – has them both sighing in relief. You don’t notice until you are out, just how suffocating a place can be. A mindset, your way of life.

Daichi fills his lungs with it, air, freedom, the joy of being and reaches out to take Suga’s hand in his.

 

They manage to hop on the train just as the doors are closing and the few stops in between the city and Meiji they spend them pressed against each other, in the far corner of the wagon.

Daichi is aware of the people around them, not many but still there, of the stares a couple of young men keep throwing his and Suga’s way but for the life of him he cannot care. He’s spent too many years of his life caring too much. About appearances, about the way he’s perceived and how he carries himself, the impression he makes on others.

He’s spent so much time caring about things that don’t matter.

He raises a hand and pushes Suga’s bangs away from his eyes. He lingers there, smoothes the curls with his fingers and feels the softness of Suga’s hair on the skin of his palm.

So close, all he has to do is tilt his head a little to the side and he’s nuzzling Suga’s temple. The smell of his hair is overwhelming, Daichi breathes it all in.

“What are you doing?” Suga asks and Daichi can hear a smile in his voice.

He doesn’t answer, instead he closes his arms around Suga’s frame and makes a show of sniffing him, very loud and obnoxious.

Suga laughs in his ear and along with his children’s voices calling him ‘daddy’ it’s the most beautiful sound in the world.

“What are you, a dog?”

There’s still a slight slur in Suga’s voice, in the way he holds his vowels, but considering how much he drank it’s quite impressive how alert he seems. Daichi would probably still be in some dark corner of the bar, nearly passed out and going on and on about that one time the vice-principal lost his wig.

He gets weepy when he’s drunk…

So you can see why, as a general rule, he tries to never get on that level. Ever.

Just as he’s thinking this Suga cups his face in his hands – lovely, warm in the palms but cold at the fingertips, so impossibly soft. Regards Daichi with a long, contemplative look, and Daichi wants to kiss the small crease between his brows.

“You kinda look like one?”

He blinks. “I look like what?”

“Like a dog, of course.”

“ _What?_ I don’t look-”

Clearly, _clearly_ he spoke too soon. Suga is wasted, he is wasted and nonsensical and delusional and-

“Yeah, a Rottweiler!”

“A rott- I don’t, that’s not true!”

“Hey, Rottweilers are cute!”

That is so not the point.

“That is so not the-um…”

Their stop is announced and Suga drags him out of the train before he can argue further, but the indignation is obvious in the way he’s stomping and refusing to hold Suga’s hand.

“Oh, come on, it was meant to be a compliment!”

“A compliment? How would you feel if I told you you looked like…” Daichi looks Suga up and down, searching for some quality that will remind him of a furry thing.

All his brain supplies is that Suga looks very sexy in these jeans. Not helpful at all, and in fact very distracting. Daichi nearly walks in a lamppost.

“A fox?” he tries after some thought. “A bunny?”

Suga lights up. “You think I look like a fox? Thank you!”

No, this was not…he wasn’t meant to feel flattered by it. Damn it.

“I don’t understand why you are so mad. Dogs are great, they are your favourites…”

“That doesn’t mean I want to be compared to one!”

Daichi drags his hand up and down his face, follows the curve of his jaw and suddenly it hits him. “Is it because my face is so wide?”

“What?”

“Rottweilers have wide faces, is this it?”

Suga huffs, mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like ‘’why can’t I ever shut up’’ and stops to lean back on his front door, chin tilted just enough to look Daichi in the eyes.

“Maybe it is your face, I don’t know, but I sure didn’t mean it as an offense!”

He closes his hands around Daichi’s wrist and brings his hand down, away from his neck. “I mean, I…I quite like you face” Suga whispers to his feet as a soft blush spreads on his cheeks.

And just like that the atmosphere around them shifts and changes into something quieter, slower. Daichi’s mouth curves into a smile. “You do?”

Suga scoffs and shrugs, moves his weight from one foot to the other. “Yeah, maybe. A little.”

He throws a quick glance Daichi’s way. “A lot.”

Daichi moves closer and again they are standing forehead to forehead. His hands fall to Suga’s hips. “Yeah?”

“Mmm.”

“There’s…there’s a slight chance I might have been attracted to you since our first meeting.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I…” Suga bites the inside of his cheek and it’s only the alcohol, probably, that has him admitting this while they are so close, with nothing but their last insecurities standing between them. “I thought you were the most handsome man I’d ever seen.”

He doesn’t say more, but it’s clear his thoughts haven’t changed. His breath is coming out shallow to Daichi’s ears, a little too fast through parted lips.

But perfectly in sync with Daichi’s own.

“Since the beginning?” he hears himself ask and his heart skips a beat when Suga nods.

Since the beginning, when Suga was nothing more to him than the possibility of a solution, an admittedly pretty one, of course, but that’s all. And Suga was already thinking about him in certain ways.

Since the beginning, months ago.

Daichi burrows closer into Suga and now they are cheek to cheek. The heat of Suga’s skin transfers itself to Daichi, fills his entire body with a pleasant sort of warmth, soft and tender as if they are standing before a crackling fireplace.

That’s how it is, being with Suga. Daichi closes his eyes and loses himself in it.

“And how long have you…?”

_…had feelings for me._

“Does it really matter?” Suga asks back, in the crook of his neck.

It doesn’t, not really.

But “Months,” Suga adds after a long while of silence. “Before Ayame’s birthday, maybe. That day we went out alone looking for a present. Perhaps…perhaps even earlier.”

So long ago, it feels like years have passed.

Daichi holds Suga close and hides his face in his hair. His heart is calm now, settled inside his chest.

“When you first walked me to my door and took that shrimp pin from my hair. Or maybe it was that day in the kitchen, when you…when we first talked…”

Suga’s voice is still coming out the tiniest bit slurred and through the wonderful smell of his skin Daichi can sense the alcohol, the dried drops of it Nishinoya spilled earlier on the hem of his shirt. It’s alright, though. If it hadn’t been for it Daichi is not convinced Suga would have answered his questions.

“I don’t know, Daichi…”

If it hadn’t been for tonight, Daichi probably wouldn’t have asked them.

“You need to go now,” Suga whispers at last in his ear and Daichi nods.

He moves away, slowly, and their eyes meet. “I’m still a little tipsy,” Suga tells him, perfectly articulate, but too unsteady, too unsure.

“I know.”

They don’t need to say more.

Daichi leans down, brushes away strands of Suga’s hair and presses a kiss on the mole at the corner of his eye. Then another on his closed eyelid.

“Goodnight,” he says.

Before Suga can say it back he turns around, so he won’t be tempted to follow the curling of his lips.

“Goodnight, Daichi.”

Moments pass, where Daichi walks away in too small steps, too aware of Suga’s eyes still on him. Then the clicking of a door closing echoes in the night and all that’s left is silence.

The smell of Suga’s skin sticking to his clothes, Daichi begins to make his way home.

Or is he walking away from it?

 

 

*

 

Suga’s head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton.

He throws his blankets away and they fall into a pile on the floor, holding his foot hostage. He nearly trips, only thing that saves him is the mattress he clings on to.

Fuck, and he’s not even that hangover…

It’s just regular early morning drama. He’s not sure if that’s more or less sad, to be honest.

Onyx follows him, first to the bathroom then to the kitchen, a little too close for comfort and meowing incessantly.

“Yeah, I know. I shouldn’t have drunk so much, it’s bad for me blah blah blah.”

Onyx meows again in agreement. Unbelievable, he’s being scolded by his cat.

But the cat does have a point…

If he hadn’t drunk so much last night, maybe Daichi would have kissed him. Maybe they could have done more than that.

“Ugh.”

Suga drops his head on the counter and stays like that, in complete silence, till the coffee maker beeps and the rich aroma of espresso fills the room.

He’d seen the looks Daichi kept throwing his way last night, he’d seen the way his hands were shaking, even closed into fists on his thighs, as he was watching him dance. And Suga…well, he’d taken advantage of it, of Daichi’s eyes on him, of the alcohol loosening their inhibitions. He’d provoked him and he would have continued to do so if a thought hadn’t struck him, hard like a slap in the face.

He didn’t want it to happen like this. He _doesn’t_ want it to happen like this. The spur of a moment, the taste of alcohol too strong and persistent on their tongues. He wants to be lucid when it happens, he wants to be himself one-hundred per cent, present and aware of everything around him, conscious of all the things that are happening inside of him.

He needs to feel everything and remember it the next day, remember it for years to come. Because it’s just this important to him. Daichi is important to him.

“God, Onyx, I’m losing my mind…”

Onyx jumps on the counter at the sound of his voice and licks his cheek in comfort.

Over a boy. He’s losing his mind over a boy.

He never thought this would happen but here he is, standing in the kitchen with his face planted on the counter, wearing his octopus pjs and covered in cat saliva. Losing his mind over a boy.

If Tsukishima were here he’d give him one of his looks and call him pathetic.

Or maybe not. Tsukishima never dared talk to him that way.

He sighs and straightens, at last but still too late, his back gives a painful twitch. Man, he’s getting old, isn’t he?

Onyx chooses not to answer this question and climbs her way up his shoulder.

The sky is clear and the sun is already warm enough not to make Suga shiver as he steps outside. A head of sparkling white hair catches his gaze and he makes his way toward the chaise lounges. He only meant to collect the paper but Taka only ever sits there when he has something on his mind and it’s been too long since he and Suga had a proper talk anyway.

“Hey.”

“Good morning, Suga-san.”

“Can I sit?” Suga asks as he’s already brushing off strands of grass off the empty chair.

“Yeah, of course.”

Taka’s tone is polite as usual but his expression is dark. In the years they’ve known each other Suga thinks he’s gotten quite good at telling apart Taka’s resting scowl and his real scowl, one that reflects his real mood, and the one he’s wearing this morning does not bode well.

Suga hands him his mug of coffee for a sip and Taka takes it with a grateful nod. Watches as Suga hugs his legs to his chest and forces Onyx to lie down on his feet. All in silence.

“So, what’s up?” Suga decides to push, just a little. For the greater good.

Taka shrugs. It’s so forced it looks like it’s hurting him. Acting so casual.

Suga puts a hand on his arm. “Taka?”

“Is there something wrong with me, Suga-san?” he asks at last and Suga nearly jumps at the steel in his tone.

“What? No, of course not.”

“Then why does…why is it so hard?”

“Oikawa-san, I know he has his problems with Iwaizumi-san but he’s always…he’s always surrounded by people and it comes so easy to him and you…you have Sawamura-san now…”

Suga would flush at the implication behind Taka’s words, if the way his friend’s voice is shaking wasn’t breaking his heart. “It’s not…it’s not easy, Taka. For me or for Tooru, it’s not easy for anyone.”

Tooru hides his true self behind outlandish behavior and too good looks. Suga…before Daichi, Suga was locked so tight into himself he wouldn’t even let the morning sun come in.

Before Daichi…

“Hinata-chan has a boyfriend,” Taka says, loud and clear and flat, too flat.

“Oh, Taka…”

Suga looks away from the picture his friend makes and blindly reaches out for him. He finds his shoulder and squeezes it.

So it’s true. Daichi was vague about it, ‘’there’s this guy he has feelings for’’ and Suga hadn’t felt it was right to tell Taka about it. Then, after a while, he’d simply forgotten it.

He’s awful.

He’s awful but now it’s not the time to drown in guilt.

“Did you see him? With that…with that other guy?”

“Yeah, yesterday night. They were arguing. My friend, he knows Hinata-chan too, she insisted that they are not together but I…I saw the way they were looking at each other.”

“I never had a chance.”

He says it like he’s talking about someone else, and it’s only proof of how resigned he is. How resigned he was all along. “I never _get_ a chance.”

“Taka, I…” Suga doesn’t know what to tell him.

He’s always liked Hinata fine, always thought he was adorable but now if he could, if he had him within reach he would love to punch him in his stupidly joyous face. Take him away where Taka never has to look at him again.

“I’m sorry,” he says at last, it’s the only thing he can come up with.

In times like this there is really nothing much to say anyway.

‘’It was his loss’’? Yeah, objectively speaking it was but Hinata still has a sort-of-boyfriend he likes and Taka is the one who’s heartbroken. Doesn’t change anything about their situation.

‘’You can do better than him’’? Suga doesn’t know that, he doesn’t know Hinata enough to say that and in any case…he can’t know for sure if Taka will get a chance to.

So he opts for the only truth, the only thing he’s sure of. “You are wonderful, Aone Takanobu. Second-guess everything else but never, ever doubt this.”

He can’t believe the sweetest guy in the world has to second-guess this. Fuck, if only people were more capable of looking past their bloody noses. If only they were smart enough to realize what a wonderful person Taka really is, without just stopping at appearance.

He moves in closer and presses a kiss on Taka’s cheek. “I love you.”

“I know it’s not…it’s not what you want right now but whatever happens you’ll always have me. And Tooru, and all those crazy guys that work at the gym with you.”

Taka tries a smile, but it’s still too soon, still too forced. “Thanks, Suga-san.”

His voice, though, comes out a little lighter.

It’s not enough to make the ever-present option of ending up alone any less terrifying. It’s not enough to mend Taka’s heart, Suga wishes he could do it, he wishes he could pick up the pieces and glue them all back together, he wishes he could tell Taka that, for sure, he will not end up alone, none of them will but he can’t.

All he can do is be there for him.

So he does.

For the whole week-end he and Taka stay locked inside the house and watch movies in their pajamas. Eat ice-cream out of the can. When Tooru doesn’t have a match or practice he joins too and forces Suga to lie down on his and Taka’s laps, because the couch simply cannot fit all three of them together.

They make cookies and feed some of Tooru’s chicken to Onyx without Tooru noticing.

It’s nice, and Suga thinks nothing of the calls his friends sometimes have to take that force them outside of the room and out of earshot, or of the vague, sporadic texts Daichi sends him. After all, he’s at his parents’ house, Suga doesn’t expect him to spend all his time glued to the phone with him.

“More ice-cream, Suga-san?” Taka asks once Tooru has disappeared again, a weird, almost furtive look in his eyes.

“Yeah, give it here.”

They finish it in five minutes sharp and give themselves a nasty brain freeze. It’s worth it, if only for the glare Tooru sends their way when they all realize it was the last box.


	25. And you give yourself away, part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suga's birthday.

His mother never stays. In all his dreams she only lingers long enough for a look before leaving once again.

On the day of Suga’s birthday though, she stops in front of him and smiles. Not the casual, distracted smiles she sometimes throws his way when he attempts conversation, but a slow one, not quite happy, like it is in the one picture he has of her, but content. Not sad, but nostalgic.

Suga doesn’t smile back then, he only looks.

That smile speaks a lot of choices made, too much for him to feel happy about it.

_You_ _look_ _well_ , it seems to say. _You_ _grew_ _up_ _just_ _fine_.

_I made the right choice._

Suga doesn’t smile back, he only looks and, after a moment of hesitation, he nods.

Yes, he grew up more or less fine. He made it to 26. He’s weeks away from getting his MA, just the other day his advisor told him of a spot open at a small publishing company that primarily handles academic papers and books. His life is going well, better than he could have ever hoped. He’s loved, he has good friends.

He has Daichi, and the kids...

He doesn’t say any of that to her but when she averts her eyes, only for a moment, to check if the carriage and the horses are ready, Suga gestures for her to go.

He nods again.

_You can go now._

The carousel is moving so slow it’s crawling, if she doesn’t get off soon she’ll be stuck here forever.

Or until his next dream.

“Go,” he tells her, and instead of watching her leave he gets off too. Finally he can.

On the other side, seated on the stillness of the ground, it’s his entire family, the one he was born into and the one he found for himself. They are all smiling.

Suga makes his way to them.

 

“Hey, sleepy-head...”

Suga blinks and the sun peeking through the semi-closed drapes winks at him, hits him straight in the eye as a way to wish him a good morning.

A punch in the face would have been more welcome.

God, why can’t mornings just...be banned?

“Kou-chan?”

Eyes still closed, Suga pulls Tooru by the shirt and forces him down, at the perfect angle so he’s blocking the sun with his head.

“Oh my, Kou-chan, If I had known for your birthday all you wanted was a kiss from me I would have saved the money for the present...”

And if Suga weren’t squeezing them shut so tight he would roll his eyes so hard they’d spin out of his orbits.

Tooru pounces just as his words register in Suga’s brain.

It’s his birthday today. He’s turning 26.

Fuck, he’s getting so old...

“Oh my God, Tooru-” he means to add ‘’how much do you weight’’ but just as he’s about to, Tooru presses a sticky kiss on his cheek then bolts off the bed and away from him with a shriek.

“It’s the same cheek I saw that monster lick earlier!”

Suga shields his face from the sun and opens his eyes once and for all, just to admire the sight of Tooru trying to clean his tongue with a tissue. Always so dramatic...

Onyx meows from the opposite side of the bed and Suga swears she looks smug.

“Come here, you,” he tells her, his voice still a little rough from sleep. He opens his arms and she leaps, lands on his chest with a soft thud and makes her way up so she’s nestled in the crook of his neck. Her whiskers tickle his chin. “Morning, love.”

“Good morning to you too, Kou-chan,” Tooru replies without missing a beat. Then he adds “Happy birthday,” a little softer, and Suga stands to kiss the corner of his mouth.

“Thank you, Tooru.”

He and Taka already wished him a happy birthday last night, while they were all piled up on the couch and whistling at Finn and Poe Dameron kiss in the new Star Wars movie. It was six minutes past midnight, and they were only beaten by Daichi who, three minutes earlier, had sent him a text that had somehow managed to make him blush to the roots of his hair with just its earnest simplicity.

‘happy birthday, sug. i can’t wait to see you tomorrow, even if it’s only for a few minutes...’

He’d heard Daichi’s voice in his ear, low and intimate like it had been Friday at the restaurant, and he’d reread the text five times before Tooru had noticed his stillness, taken one look at the clock and tackled him while singing – extremely off-key – ‘happy birthday to you’.

“Tacchan made you breakfast,” Tooru is saying now as they make their way to the kitchen, a hand low on Suga’s back, “he had to run to the library to prepare for an exam and he didn’t want to wake you but he said to eat whatever you want.”

_Oh, Taka..._

“That’s so sweet...”

Suga looks at the array of plates and jars on the kitchen table and smiles. Taka sure didn’t hold back this morning, there’s coffee, of course, -an entire pot of it, - tea, chocolate chip cookies, a couple of dorayaki and, Suga’s eyes widen at the sight, even a batch of marbled muffins that smell mouth-wateringly good. He tries one right away and yep, they taste even better.

He must make some kind of contented noise because Tooru chuckles and squeezes him in a one-armed hug. Only to mock his hum in the next breath. “Tacchan will be happy to know you found his muffins ‘hmmmpffuuh’!” he says and moves away from Suga just in time to avoid an elbow in the side.

The clock on the kitchen wall ticks 9 am sharp and Tooru’s expression changes.

“I need to go too,” he says after a moment, and only then Suga notices he’s already fully dressed, “coach wants to squeeze in as many practice matches as he can before the one against Chuo.”

Oh.

“Oh, of course...”

Suga nods, he understands, of course he understands. Chuo is always a hard fit for Meiji, with its impressive number of outstanding players it always seems to find new, unpredictable combinations to catch its rivals blindsided. So far, out of eighteen games played, Meiji has only managed to win six, two of which were ‘’friendly’’ practice matches. So really, Suga understands. He watches Tooru tie his shoes, take one last look in the mirror and leave with a distracted wave and suddenly he’s alone. Alone on his birthday.

He understands...but his stomach drops all the same.

It’s alright though, he tries to reason, he has to go pick that book from the library in less than hour anyway so he can’t stay in himself. And his father’s train arrives at noon, he’s not going to be alone for long...

Not that he minds being alone, of course, but he thought...

Onyx meows and jumps on his lap, as if to remind him that he’s not. Technically.

He looks down at her and lets her nuzzle his cheek. He’s not alone.

He’s not.

He turns on the TV for company and the weather forecast guys fill the silence with their predictions – see: 90% incorrect guesses – and it’s a little better.

His phone keeps buzzing with birthday wishes, from friends and acquaintances, some of his professors even, first of all Fukunaga-san, who tells him to take it easy for today and have fun. Hajime calls and it’s lovely, Suga has missed him these past few weeks. Tooru will always have his loyalty but it would hurt having to break ties with Hajime, he’s always been a good friend to him. Even on his worst days.

When he’s ready Suga says goodbye to Onyx with a long hug and lets her out in the garden to hunt for small, - preferably not - living things. He runs to the library to finally get this damn book, the last book he needs to plan the conclusion of his thesis, with still has half a muffin in his mouth because apparently he’s become an anime character or something.

Having this stupidly rare volume - for which he’s had to wait five weeks - finally in his hands is a relief so strong he sighs and hugs it to his chest. The old, wizened lady at the counter regards him with near suspicion and immediately he changes grip on the book, holding it with only his fingertips.

Man, if he had known she was in this morning he would have brought latex gloves with him. Kamiya-san is the terror of every grad student, and with good reason. The rumours that she picks her teeth with the bones of the careless students she’s killed over the years are dated back to the 70s, when she first started working at the university library. Fukunaga-san too flinches at the mention of her name.

In quick steps Suga picks a table as far away from the reception as he can and sets a timer for 11:30. He works on the thesis for a couple of hours, copying the most relevant quotes of the volume on his Sylveon notebook and it’s as he’s almost done that the most welcome messages arrive.

First from Ayame, a simple ‘happy birthday sugasan, we love you!’ that she clearly typed with her brother next to her and is only managing to send now, in between one lesson and the other - Yurika-san doesn’t want her using her phone much and often takes it with her in the morning so Ayame won’t waste time after it.

Suga looks at the string of emojis after the text, every flower emoji that exists, two fireworks and a birthday hat, and finds himself giggling in the palm of his hand, loud enough that a couple of students sitting near his table glare at him from behind engineering books.

He ignores them and clicks on the notification for another message.

This one’s from Daichi.

His heart skips a beat and after he’s done reading it soars into the air, to the six meters tall library roofs.

‘thinking of you.....’

Thinking of you, and five dots.

Daichi never does this sort of thing, adding punctuation to make a stronger point. The fact that he is now nearly has Suga hiding his face in his hands. Only the fact that he’s 26 years old – 26, not 16 – stops him.

Still...

He’s _not_ alone this year. Even when he is, surrounded only by strangers in a dusty old room, somehow he is not.

Is this the difference between alone and lonely?

A momentary state and a lasting one, that slowly becomes the norm, an impossibly heavy condition of being?

The phone buzzes again, this time it’s the alarm. Five new pages written and now his father is here, only a few stops away from him.

Suga runs out of the library to meet him halfway.

 

The station’s crowded, like it always is on Mondays, and Suga stands on his tippy toes to try and catch a glimpse of salt and pepper hair, familiar brown eyes or, even better, the bright lime green of his father’s luggage.

Suga bought it for him with this exact purpose, after all.

Nothing. Five minutes pass, then ten, and nobody catches Suga’s eyes. Strangers pass him by wrestling their trolleys and biting their lips not to throw curses his way, a couple of guys make a show of checking him out and Suga moves to a different spot, near the stairs.

Still nothing and the train arrived the same time as he did.

Maybe he should wait outside. His father’s bound to come out sometime, if he stands by the entrance he’ll see him straight away. So he goes, eyes scanning the crowd, and...

There his father is, right outside the station, standing still on the sidewalk and talking to someone in a black SUV.

A black SUV. A suspicious black SUV with shaded windows, like the ones you see in action movies.

What the hell...?

“Dad?” Suga calls and his father winces, he actually winces at the sound of his voice.

The SUV starts and leaves in one smooth motion and all Suga can make out through a window turned halfway down is a beautifully muscled arm, a broad hand closed tightly around the steering wheel. The sun shines on what seems to be a scar and something tugs at Suga’s brain, something like recognition, but before he can give this instinct any weight the car is gone, lost behind a corner.

“Koushi...”

His father reaches him and just as he opens his mouth to ask for a – much needed – explanation he’s pulled in a tight, warm hug.

“Happy birthday, kid,” dad mutters in his ear, and the familiar awkwardness creeping in his voice suggests he’s experiencing more emotions he can handle. Any emotion is more than his father can handle, really, and that’s one of the things about him Suga loves the most.

Even though his father is the most put-together person he knows, the most capable and steady and good-hearted person Suga has ever met, there’s an immaturity with which he deals with some of his emotions that Suga has always found hilarious. In a way, maybe, that’s what allowed them to grow so close.

“You look well,” his father continues and he holds Suga’s chin between his fingers, studies him to find any source of possible concern. Too dark shadows under his eyes, an insistent crease between his brows? We just don’t know.

Suga has just come to accept it over the years as a parent thing.

He’s caught himself doing it with Ayame and Kaede as well. Several times...

He ignores the painful pang in his chest, the image of Yurika-san brushing Kaede’s bangs away from his forehead, and tries a smile for his father.

“Hi, dad.”

“You ok, Kou?”

Of course his father wasn’t fooled.

He knows him too well.

“Yeah, yeah...”

_I don’t know._

“Just tired, I guess. Birthdays are always weird...”

Dad nods and while he doesn’t look too convinced with the explanation he doesn’t push.

Together they make their way down the street in perfect silence. Their steps sync and slowly the line of Suga’s shoulders relaxes once more. It’s nice, being with his father again. They catch each other’s eyes while crossing the street and smile, Suga laughs. They reach the other side of the road just as the cars are starting to move.

“All good till none of them hits us!”

“That’s the countryman in you talking, dad. After years of living in the city I can tell you people don’t care even if they’re hit, they’ll be up and running to work on a broken leg like it’s nothing...”

“Don’t say these things, Koushi, or next time I come here it’ll be to hide you in my luggage and get you back to Miyagi.”

It’s as much of a joke as it is a serious threat and it nearly has Suga doubled up with laughter.

Yes, it’s so nice, having his father here. It’s nice, until Suga sees a black car parked near a sidewalk and remembers the SUV from just moments ago.

When he brings it up his father tenses beside him.

“Um, it was...it was just a guy asking for directions.”

“Really?”

Suga would believe it, if not for the way his father is avoiding his gaze. “What kinda guy?”

His dad huffs and attempts to shrug his shoulders. It’s so uncomfortable a gesture it’s nearly funny.

Or it would be if Suga weren’t so damn confused. “Dad?”

“Alright, Koushi. Alright. I didn’t want to tell you this because it’s your birthday and I didn’t want to spoil that...”

Suga sucks in a breath as a frenzied kind of worry takes possession of his body. His father is having financial troubles and asked for help to the wrong guys. He was witness of a felony and is being threatened by powerful people. The Yakuza.

His father’s sick. How does that fit with the suspicious SUV?

His nana is sick. Same question as before.

“That person was a famous one, a celebrity, sort of...”

What?

“What?”

_That’s it?_

_Oh, thank goodness..._

Then it dawns on him. “Holy shit, who was it?”

Now it’s his father’s turn to blink, like he wasn’t expecting Suga to actually ask. “Um...”

“Well?”

“Let me think!”

“What is there to think about, who was it? An actor, a politician? In that case I don’t care, oh! Was it a volleyball player?”

His father nods, slow and completely lost. Suga thinks he sees a trace of panic in his eyes. “Y-yeah, a...a volleyball player. That one, um, that one you like?”

Why is he being so vague about this?

Maybe he doesn’t remember the name...

“There are many volleyball players I like, dad...”

Dad is sweating now. “That guy...that guy with weird hair?”

It’s like he’s the one who has to guess-

“Oh my God.”

Skepticism is replaced by elation as a weird head of hair comes to Suga’s mind. “Please don’t, please don’t tell me it was Bokuto Koutaro...”

“Um...”

“W-was his hair black and white and styled into spikes?”

If his father got to meet Bokuto Koutaro that one time in a blue moon he came to the city while Suga hasn’t even ever crossed paths with him in eight whole years he swears...

His father sighs, almost in relief, and nods. “Yeah, that. It was him.”

“Damn it!”

For the next five minutes he tries to get his father to tell him more about his meeting, but dad is strangely tight-lipped, dismisses it as a quick exchange of directions and nothing more. At one point he mentions Bokuto-san’s girlfriend and Suga nearly walks into an old lady in surprise.

“Bokuto Koutaro is gay, dad. He came out years ago.”

“Oh, t-then it must have been his agent?”

It’s not like his father, to make assumptions like that. This whole story is all kinds of weird, to be honest. But what reason could his father have to lie to him?

“Oh, hey, Koushi. That looks like a nice place to eat!” His father drags him on the other side of the street, almost frantic, to a cozy restaurant in red and brown-ish hues.

And Suga decides, for once, to be the one not to push and focus on more important things in life. Like food.

 

“You know, Koushi, I like my food spicy too but just the smell of your mapo tofu is enough to make my eyes water...”

Suga grins winningly at his father and takes another sip of his broth. The spices and peppers dance on his tongue and sting it, tears prickle at the corners of his eyes as a wave of heat hits him, reaches all the way down his toes.

He takes a bite of his tofu and doesn’t bother looking at the glass of water his father is trying to hand him. “This is perfect.”

“Your face is as red as a chilli pepper, kid.”

“Good.”

Dad doesn’t understand that that’s part of the package. If he’s going to order something extra spicy then he wants to feel the pain, he wants to feel his blood thrum in his veins, his taste buds torn between dancing the Conga and screaming in horror.

When he tries to explain this to his father, his father rolls his eyes and stands. “You’re a weird one, son,” he says, and after a warm pat on his shoulder he makes his way to the toilet.

Or at least that’s what he tells him.

Once they’re done with their main – and only – courses Suga looks around for his wallet and in that moment his father gestures to someone behind him.

“Who are you waving a- oh, dad...”

Two waiters make their way to him with a gorgeous sponge cake covered in whipped cream and strawberries and as soon as they’ve laid it on the table in front of Suga they begin to sing.

Soon half the restaurant joins, included the group of tourists sitting two tables to their left, that go so far as to standing up and clapping their hands in rhythm.

“Oh, God...”

Suga tries not to blush and blows the candles as soon as the song is done. The tourists cheer and whistle, and he’s pretty sure a couple of them even wink at him.

His father is smiling, wide and happy, for once the nostalgia in his eyes completely gone. Suga takes his hand under the table and squeezes it.

_Thank you._

_Even though that just now was completely embarrassing, thank you._

His father squeezes back and takes a bite from his slice of cake.

Which is delicious, Suga has to admit. He’s not a fan of fruity desserts but this one is good. The waiters insist they take it home but dad has other plans and tells them to offer a slice to all the people in the room.

He and Suga leave soon after, to avoid the ‘thank you’s and more cheers and at the entrance the – admittedly attractive – buxom hostess catches his father’s eyes and tells him to ‘come back soon, honey’. His father gives her a courteous nod and pretends not to see the look Suga is fixing him with.

“The cake was good, right?” he hurries to say before Suga can get any words out. “I know you are not a fan of fruity sweets but you seemed to enjoy that, didn’t you? I thought it was very pleasant myself-”

“That woman was making eyes at you!”

There it is.

His father closes his eyes for a moment, as if to collect his patience, but Suga notices all the same the way he’s fidgeting with the handhold of his trolley. Nerves. “Koushi, please. It’s your birthday, do we really have to do this?”

“Do this what? I’m just saying that an attractive woman was making eyes at you. Nothing weird about that.”

Except that they’ve never talked about this before. Now that he thinks about it, save for a couple of his friends’ wives, Suga has never really seen his father in the company of women. Talking to them, laughing with them. To be fair, there isn’t much of a choice in their town, and small as it is his father is all too conscious of the talks, of the looks, but still. His father has been single for a long time now, how is it that Suga never even saw him try to...

Get over her.

Oh.

“Dad?”

“What is it, Koushi?” All of a sudden, his father sounds weary.

And Suga doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable, he doesn’t want the mood to become something heavy and dark today, on his birthday, but he needs to ask. This is another thing he needs an answer to.

“Why did you...I’ve never seen you date.”

It’s not a question, maybe this way his father will find it easier to answer.

He shrugs. They are close to the park now and Suga directs them through a trail between the oaks that’s full of shade, full of quiet.

“I never had a chance to,” dad says, and this is almost a question too.

Suga doesn’t believe it for a second. “Was it because of me? Because I really don’t think I would have minded...”

He’s confident he wouldn’t have. He resigned himself pretty soon to the fact she would never come back, much sooner than his father did – maybe that’s the problem... – and seeing his father happy – finally, for once – was, for the longest time, a wish he made to falling stars.

“No, it wasn’t for...I mean, when you were younger, of course, I didn’t even think about, I was just focused on taking care of you...”

_But I’m 26 now, dad._

He opens his mouth to say it but doesn’t. It would only put his father more on the spot.

“I just want you to be happy,” he says instead. He doesn’t know if dating again, finding another person to love - or simply keep him company - would help make that happen, or if his father is one of those people who feel better when they’re alone. He just wants his father to not hold back when it comes to his own happiness.

That’s all.

His father places a hand on his shoulder and claps it. It’s awkward, since they are still walking but Suga makes no move to shake it off.

“I know, Koushi. I know.”

And that’s enough, apparently.

They reach the pond and follow another trail and in the shadow of the ginkgo trees his father tells him. “I think a part of me lost faith in love after Elèa left.”

Then he adds, “that’s it,” as if an afterthought. As if that wasn’t the most heartbreaking answer he could have given.

The sting of the blow is as painful as a slap in full face would be and Suga’s breath catches inside his chest, broken and heavy for it. He moves on shaky legs to lean on the trunk of an old tree and when its downturned branches graze the fabric of his shirt he nearly bursts out laughing.

A weeping willow, that’s what he’s standing under.

How fitting.

“Dad...”

He doesn’t know what to say, he has no fucking clue.

His father comes to stand in front of him and smiles. It doesn’t look sad, not nearly as sad as Suga feels right now. “You have a way of asking the hardest questions, kid.”

It’s a thought Suga himself has had before, about Kaede.

Kaede asks impossible questions too, questions that have answers he’s too young to fully understand. Like that of the other day, what was it...?

Oh, that’s right, ‘why do people try so hard if they are not sure they will succeed?’

That’s what it was and upset in complete silence Suga still thinks ‘why, indeed?’

Why bet on your career, when you could easily lose all you’ve worked so hard for?

Why gamble on your heart when you can’t know for sure if it’ll come back to you intact?

Kaede had looked at him the other day expecting all the answers in the world. With his wide, black eyes he’d put Suga in the toughest spot, up on a pedestal, but when Suga hadn’t been able to give him a single answer – not one at all - he’d accepted to walk the Superman walk with him all the same.

And with the image of Kaede, that of Ayame follows. Naturally. Her tears-streaked face the first time they’d fought, her sadness and anger when he’d told her the truth about his mother. Last comes Daichi, his face, his warmth. Suga sees them all smiling at him in the back of his mind, he hears their voices in his head.

_You are still my Suga-san..._

_But we could be!_

_I could stay..._

The children he loves. The man he loves.

For possibilities like this a man gambles.

“Oh, dad...”

He always thinks of the loneliness that comes to his father each time he has to leave again, but loneliness became part of his father a long time ago. And took a toll on him.

Suga never realized just how big, how heavy that toll was. The toll of a lost bet.

“Hey.”

Dad moves closer and forces Suga to look at him with a hand firm on his arm, he shakes him. “Koushi, I’m fine...”

_It may be so, but I’m not._

“It is what it is.”

“But you’re unhappy!”

His father blinks, then again he smiles, softer than before. “Who said I am?”

“You!”

_You just said that..._

“I’m only sad when you’re away, Koushi. And that’s sad, not unhappy.”

“I’m always away, though...”

_Maybe I should..._

“Maybe I should...”

_Come back._

“No.”

The shaky uncertainty of his voice is replaced by the near harshness in his father’s. “Do you really think it’d make me happy, seeing you every day but miserable-”

“I wouldn’t be miserable...”

_I wouldn’t be miserable..._

_Would I?_

“Of course you would, Koushi. Your life is here, your friends are here. Your career, your...those children you babysit.”

And the thought of being away from _them_ is enough for his heart to begin a struggle and thrash inside his chest. He can’t.

His father’s right, he can’t.

“I’m only sad because I miss you, kid,” his father says again. Set on convincing him, too insistent to be true.

“That’s bullshit.”

It’s not the only reason.

His father turns to lean back on the tree with him and silent they watch a couple walk past them swinging their joined hands together. Just the other day Suga had done the same, with Daichi, with that same nervous, excited smile on his face.

Just the other day.

“Of course that’s bullshit,” his father adds, sudden, when Suga has already resigned himself he won’t. “I miss _her_ too. I miss her every day.”

Suga had already known that, of course he had, but to hear it said...it shakes him.

“That’s why I don’t want...I don’t want to try again, with someone else. She was it for me, Koushi, she still is. Nobody could compare and it wouldn’t be fair of me to compare anyone to her, and I’d end up doing it sooner or later, if I decided to give some other woman a shot.”

“No woman... _nobody_ deserves to be compared to a ghost.”

 Shoulder to shoulder against the willow, his father feels just as steady. As if he too, is deeply rooted in the ground.

“And I would rather be alone than be the sort of man who does it.”

There is nothing Suga can say to that. Nothing at all.

More people pass and the shadows cast by the trees change shape and direction, become shorter.

He and his father begin to walk again, stick to the trail till the trail ends and opens to a vast, sunny clearing. Green grass and wild flowers, daisies and dandelions as far as the eye can reach. There are dozens of couples, lying on the grass  or beach mats, soaking up the sun between kisses.

Suga looks around, anywhere to avoid them, and tugs his father up a little rise in the ground. Clinging on the trunk of a wide oak they reach the other side and there they find a fountain, almost lost in musk and bushes, its surface nearly covered by dozens and dozens of water lilies. Suga sits on the stone edges of it to thumb at the petals of a bright pink one.

He misses the time when he could just be angry at her for what she did to his father. In a way he is, on surface level his fingertips are shaking with it, but now he knows too much for it to take a real hold on him.

Now he’s too old to believe a different choice made would have been enough to guarantee their happiness. Or at least find consolations easily.

His father stands still, steps away from the detour and watches him. What it is he sees, Suga can’t know.

“I don’t want that to happen to you too,” he says after a while, when the sun is a little less bright in the sky.

“What? Meet the person that could make me lose faith in love?”

Because if it is so, he’s afraid it’s too late.

“No, have to watch them leave.”

Their eyes meet and Suga lets the petals of the flower go. A dragonfly lands on it right away.

His fingers are dripping wet and the drops fall quick from them to the ground. Suga barely has the time to follow their path down that black earth has already swallowed them whole.

The rest he dries on his jeans, clumsy gestures and clumsy feelings. After all it’s just water. “I’m afraid there’s nothing either of us can do to keep that from happening,” he says back and waits for an answer that will confirm his thoughts.

Dad doesn’t disappoint. “You’re right, there isn’t. And we shouldn’t try to find it either, or you’d never step up to take a chance.”

He knows, his father knows. About Daichi, about his feelings. He’s only using that conditional to be polite and not force Suga to give things away.

Suga loves him for this.

“Now come on, I want to see that antiques store you were telling me about the other day...”

In the long walk that takes them to get there they talk about Suga’s thesis and how close it is to being done. Dad passes an arm around his shoulder in half a hug and tells him with a tender kind of fierceness “I’m so proud of you.”

He says it every day, on the phone, at the end of every conversation. It always makes Suga smile. Today, though, he beams.

 

Suga asks several times if dad wants to go back to the apartment, to leave his luggage there, say hello to Tooru, but each time dad insists he’s fine and points at a new store he wants to check out.

And it’s surprisingly fun, going shopping with him. Suga can’t remember the last time they did it.

They stay what feels like hours in that antiques store, his father even exchanges numbers with the old woman running it, and after that they follow the endless line of shops down the street, crossing the road in zig-zags when there are only offices instead.

His father tries on ripped jeans in one urban shop with bricks painted on the walls and Suga wheezes over how uncomfortable he looks, he has to lean on a mannequin to still stand upright. As payback in the store next door he takes a picture of Suga in an electric blue wig and sequined overalls – seriously, who wears this kind of stuff? – and they leave under the contemptuous glare of the store clerk, so powerful it has them hunching with shame.

They are on their way to a Nike store when suddenly smell of ink and old paper causes Suga to stop in the middle of the busy street. He turns and looks into the crowded window of a dusty bookstore and before his father can protest he drags him inside with him.

Stuffed shelves and old armchairs welcome them and Suga wastes no time snooping around, attracted by the dark corners behind piles and piles of books arranged chaotically on the hardwood floors.

“This place is wonderful,” he whispers in the almost religious quiet that surrounds them.

And it is. There are endless dozens of books in original language – English, of course, but also French and German, Italian, Portuguese... – and some of them are rare, little jewels published at the end of the XIX century, that survived wars and fires and the weight of time. He thumbs at them, cradles some in his arms as if they were newborn children and he gets lost in words and figures, in dates and concepts miles away from him.

He doesn’t know how much time has passed when his father finally – sadly - brings him back down on earth with a hand on the back of his neck.

“Koushi, I know it’s your birthday and you need to celebrate it however you want, but please...”

_Please let’s not waste an entire evening here._

As if he wouldn’t have been more than happy to make Suga waste it in that antiques store. But he’s right, his father comes down to the city every two years, they can’t spend their only full day together like this.

Suga takes a deep breath and limits himself to check the books in the first two shelves, memorizes the street and surroundings to find this place again when he’ll have more money, and more time. To treat himself a little he buys a collection of poems by Garcìa Lorca and the man at the cash desk, all awkward manners and endearing messy black hair, studies it with a smile on his face.

“Beautiful choice.”

“Thank you, I have half a mind to start learning Spanish...”

“Because apparently being fluent in five other languages is not enough,” his father interjects, looking close to laughter.

Suga makes a show to ignore him and pays – he has to insist it’s a gift he’s buying to himself for his father not to swoop in and get it instead, turning it into yet another present. Suga knows what the luggage he’s carrying around is full of and it sure as hell ain’t clothes. He doesn’t want his father to go too overboard with this, it’s not even a milestone birthday.

Suga’s just on his way outside the shop and thumbing Moniwa-san’s business card, that’s the store owner’s name apparently, when his phone rings.

It’s Daichi.

His heart dares a timid flip inside his chest but very aware of his father’s eyes on him, Suga modulates his voice not to sound too excited. “Hey...”

Instead he ends up sounding breathy. _Breathy_. That’s even worse.

“Hello yourself,” comes from the other side of the line, deep and warm and lovely.

Daichi is smiling, through the silence it’s painfully clear. “Happy birthday.”

“Thank you, you t-” Suga nearly says ‘you too’ because apparently this man’s voice only is enough to turn him that stupid, “um, how was your day?”

His father is boring holes in the back of his skull. Moniwa-san too, is looking at him with something akin to amusement. God, he really is an open book when it comes to Daichi.

Daichi hesitates, unaware of it all in the safety of his office, then opts for a simple “Good.”

“How about you?”

“It’s been really nice so far. My...my father’s here.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right, listen-”

Sudden commotion where Daichi is, his words so muffled Suga can’t make them out.

“Daichi, what...?”

A hissing sound, that could very well be Daichi shushing someone and then a voice stands out, loud and clear as usual. “You are taking too much time, dad!”

Ayame?

What...? What is Daichi doing home so early?

“Daichi?” Suga tries to call but Ayame is being too loud for him to hear.

Moniwa-san gets a weird expression on his face at the name but Suga is too busy trying to make out anything that could help him figure what the hell is going on.

Shuffling, hissed voices. After what must have been over a minute of silence a third voice reaches Suga’s ears. “Hi, Suga-san.”

It’s Kaede. Apparently he won the wrestling match, or, more probably, he simply swooped in and grabbed the phone for himself while the hot-blooded people in the house were fighting.

He’s such a smart cookie.

“Hi, Kaede. What’s going on there?”

“Daddy and Aya are being stupid,” is the laconic answer and Suga has to bite the inside of his cheek not to burst out laughing.

From the background comes a chorus of indignant ‘hey’s.

“Suga-san, can you come here now?” Kaede asks, around him finally quiet. “We wanna give you the presents.”

“Yes, of course.” Suga doesn’t even need to think about it. Kaede whoops, and faintly in the background Ayame does the same. Daichi tries to take the phone back to say goodbye but the line falls dead before he can, Kaede has already hung up and now Suga’s shoulders are shaking as well.

“Those kids are too much,” is all the explanation he gives, then he’s off again, snickering like a child himself.

His father has a weird look on his face, extremes of worry and delight from which he can’t seem to choose from. But when Suga tells him, through wheezes, about having to go to Daichi’s house it settles completely on pleasure.

“It’s not a problem, is it?”

“Of course not, Koushi. I’ve been waiting to meet these kids since I first heard you talking about them.”

A little voice in Suga’s head tells him it’s not just the kids his father is impatient to meet but that’s a problem for 15 minutes later him. For now all Suga can do is bow to Moniwa-san, who looks for all accounts like someone just hit him in the head with a baseball bat, and lead the way to the Sawamura house.

 

“Suga-san!”

“Happy birthday!”

Suga hasn’t even had the time to cross the gate that two very lively children are already climbing on him like he’s a jungle gym.

“We missed you, Suga-san!”

“Yes, yes, did you get my texts?!”

He lifts them both up by the waist so they are resting snugly on his hips and hides his too wide smile in their hair. “I did, it had me grinning like a loon all morning,” he mutters against Ayame’s forehead and presses a kiss there, then another and one more, on both her cheeks, smacking and obnoxiously loud.

Then he turns and does the same to Kaede, who locks his small arms behind Suga’s neck and giggles.

“I see how it is. When I do it, it’s all ‘no, daddy, gross’ but when Suga does it it’s all fine. I’m offended.”

Suga raises his eyes and immediately they meet Daichi’s, already fixed on him and impossibly soft, impossibly warm. Daichi reaches out and takes Ayame in his arms, holding the both of them up it would have been impossible for Suga to move, let alone climb the stairs that give to the front porch.

Man, he really is getting old. Not to mention out of shape.

“Happy birthday,” Daichi says again, in that same wonderfully tender tone as before. For a moment he seems about to hug him, move into him and nullify the last of the space that stands between them. But then he throws a look behind Suga’s shoulder, to where his father is, and remembers himself.

He puts a hand on Suga’s arm instead. Innocent, harmless if it wasn’t for his thumb, that is caressing the inside of his elbow in one, continuous motion. Slow and insistent it follows the dark vein there, presses on it as if to feel Suga’s pulse. Once, twice, three times senses it spiking before Daichi moves away again and lets his arm fall limp at his side.

Suga’s insides are on fire, if it wasn’t for how he’s biting the inside of his cheek his breath would give him away completely, irregular and shallow, too shallow. Still there are goosebumps breaking on his skin, the one reaction he simply can’t control, and Daichi notices.

He notices and his hand trembles and stretches, only to close into a tight fist. All not to reach out and touch him again.

All not to do what Suga wants the most.

He takes a deep breath and makes his way to Suga’s father, a cordial if slightly nervous smile on his face.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, sir.”

“Likewise, Sawamura-san.”

They bow at the same time and nearly knock heads together. When Suga and the kids laugh they clear their throats in unison and shake hands instead.

“Nice to meet you, Sugawara-san!” Ayame intones too, encouraged by her father’s actions, and shakes _his_ father’s hand with unexpected vigor.

Dad laughs. “You too, Ayame-chan. I’ve been dying to meet you for months. Koushi is always talking about you and your brother.”

Ayame lights up like a firework in the sky and just like that she’s charmed.

Kaede waves at him, from his perch in Suga’s arms and smiles a shy smile at him. Dad greets him with a slow bow of his head and smiles too without saying a word, not to force Kaede to answer back.

The beam that is causing Suga’s cheeks to ache turns softer.

“So where are all my presents?” he asks as soon as they’re inside the house, to mask his emotion away.

Kaede, still clinging to him koala-mode, tugs at the curls of his bangs. “You are here just for them, Suga-san!” he accuses in a semi-whisper.

Suga agrees and tickles his briefly in the side, just to hear that laugh again. “No, Suga-san! Mean!”

“Yeah, well, your presents are all in the kitchen,” Daichi interjects when Kaede’s laughter has faded, and his tone is weird, too loud and...pointed?

Nothing. Nobody moves or says anything for a brief moment. The kids blink up at their father, who’s looking from one to the other as if waiting for something.

Suga takes a step toward the kitchen but before he can take more Daichi speaks again. “I said, ‘’your presents are in the kitchen, Suga’’...”

“Yeah, I heard?”

But suddenly Kaede stiffens in his arms. “Oh.”

He gestures for Suga to put him down. “Suga-san, I need to show you something in the backyard,” he says. Behind him Ayame looks ready to face-palm.

Suga has no idea what the hell is going on here.

“Why? What’s in the backyard?”

“The wisteria flowered!” Ayame all but screams, and everyone in the room jumps.

Then it registers in Suga’s brain and he sucks in a breath. “Really? So soon?”

The kids nod at him and take each one of his hands. They drag him toward the backyard in quick steps, with Daichi and his father in tow.

“I guess it really likes it here, Suga-san!”

“Yeah. Dede noticed it before while he was drawing...”

“That’s amazing,” Suga’s about to say, wisterias can be very problematic sometimes, can take a long time to flower in new environments, but the words die in his throat as Ayame and Kaede open the backyard door and a dozen voices yell “Happy birthday!” in chorus.

Suga stands there, completely still by the steps to the garden for a good half minute. He blinks at the picture before his eyes, at the shouted congratulations and cheers and all he can do is gape.

This is...

_How?_

He looks around, takes it all in.

Over the backyard garden tower two tall, white gazebos, joined together to create a single shaded area over the grass. Settled in an angle by the right side are long tables, packed with food and covered with beautiful, heavy white tablecloths that almost reach the ground. And the lighting...on the house wall lanterns coloured in pastels tinge the air and cement golden. On the tables and held up by all different kinds of a candelabras long-stemmed candles of white, azure and lavender that give off the wonderful smell of melting wax Suga has always loved. But it’s the tall fence on the opposite side of the garden covered in fairy lights that most catches his eyes. Strands and strands of lights, they are not simply placed one above the other to fill the whole height of the pickets, but twined to create braids and squiggles.

“Oh, God...”

It’s as if he’s stepped inside a dream without noticing. A dream, or maybe a fairytale.

For a moment he looks back, to where his father and Daichi are standing, and he looks into Daichi’s eyes, bright with uncertainty and warmth, frantically searching for...for anything, a reaction, an emotion.

And apparently they find it, because they soften just as fast.

_I can’t believe you did this..._

Suga wants to say it – _I_ _can’t_ _believe_ _you_ _did_ _all_ _this..._ \- but he can’t find the words. There is a knot in his throat that will not give out, will not let him speak.

Daichi shrugs, as if to say ‘no big deal’ but it is, it so is.

Suga takes a step into the garden and looks at the people standing here, smiling at him, laughing at the no doubt stupid expression on his face. Tooru, who winks at him, of course he was involved in all this. He’s always somehow involved in everything. Taka is standing by his side and smiling wider than Suga has ever seen him, - the weird behaviour of the past few days suddenly makes sense, - and next to him is Hajime. He and Tooru called a truce just so they could both be here, for him.

Daichi’s mother stands a little back, to give his family and friends some space but Suga is happy to see her here, she’s always been lovely to him. She waves almost timidly his way and Suga waves back with a smile.

He can’t stop smiling, he feels so ridiculous.

Tanaka and Nishinoya blow kisses at him and his smile turns to laughter.

Then a voice reaches his ears and his heart takes flight.

“Close your mouth, baby, or flies will make a nest in it!”

He turns toward Tooru again and he and Taka move to reveal his nana, smiling impossibly wide at him and glowing with joy, she looks 20 years younger than she really is.

At his expression she claps her hands together in delight. “You didn’t really think a stupid wheelchair would keep me from being here, did you, my love?”

He shakes his head, dumbfounded, and makes his way to her. But he thought, he really thought...

When he hugs her she holds onto him so tight her grip leaves wrinkles on his shirt. He doesn’t care, how could he care when his nana is here? Where everyone he loves is here?

“It’s like that English song says, Koushi. Wild horses couldn’t have kept me away.”

“That’s not quite how it goes, nana,” he mutters in her neck and receives a gentle clout on the back of his head for his trouble.

“But...how did you get here?” he asks once they’ve separated.

His nana smirks. “The power of love. That’s what brought me here.”

Somewhere behind his shoulders Daichi begins to cough, as if he’s just nearly choked on something and when Suga turns to check on him he’s red from the tips of his ears to his neck. His mother is handing him a glass of water and trying very hard not to laugh for some reason. Suga’s father, for his part, looks as if someone just punched him in the gut.

Suga shrugs and gives his nana another hug. He will ask later how everything came to be, probably, but for now he just wants to enjoy this, his two worlds colliding.

Still he looks around and he can’t help but feel a void of sorts, he can’t help but wish one more person was here for him.

Or maybe...maybe even two.


	26. And you give yourself away, part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Celebration.

“Bend your knees more, that’s it, good. Now take a couple of long steps and jump!”

Ayame does and Tooru with her. Together they mimic the gesture of spiking an imaginary ball and whoop when they touch the ground.

“That was good, Ayame-chan. Very good.”

“Really?”        

Ayame has stars in her eyes. Ever since Tooru told her he’s the starting setter of the Meiji volleyball team she’s been bombarding him with questions upon questions about literally everything remotely volleyball-related that comes to her mind.

“Was that a jump serve I just saw my nine years old daughter try?” Daichi whispers nervously in his ear and eyes the moist strands of grass with worry.

Yeah, better not honour the tradition of spending a birthday at the ER this year...

Suga waves Tooru, and consequently Ayame, over and asks him to tell everyone of that time _the_ Bokuto Koutaro came to their university to watch the match with Tsukuba. Talking is safer, and Tooru loves to talk about that match. Tooru loves to talk in general, let’s be honest.

He launches himself into a colourful – and exaggerated – recount of that entire day, from the time he woke up, feeling the ‘’strange tingle of anticipation’’ thrumming in his veins to the powerful hand shake Bokuto-sensei gave him, to finish with the conspiratorial looks he engaged him in during breaks.

“He has this aura, you can tell just by looking at him that he’s a champion but he’s also really down to earth...”

“Yeah, Bo has always been a really nice guy,” Daichi interjects and smirks when Tooru gapes.

“Bo, did you just call Bokuto-sensei ‘Bo’?”

“Oh yeah, Tooru I forgot to mention that Daichi here played against him in high school,” Suga says and pauses for effect before landing the final blow. “They were friends.”

‘Forgot to mention’. As if. He’s been dreaming about this moment for months.

Tooru continues to gape. He looks from Daichi to Suga, from Suga to Daichi and peeks down at Ayame too, who’s nodding along in agreement. “You can’t...you are joking, right?”

“Nope,” is all Daichi answers with, he makes the ‘p’ pop. Something tells Suga the smugness he’s displaying right now has more than a little to do with the...confession of the other night. The, um, the threesome confession.

Suga covers his mouth with a hand to cover a snort and watches as Tooru grabs Daichi by the shoulders with an aggressive kind of desperation. “I will owe you for the rest of my life...” he’s saying, all but _begging_ Daichi to help him meet Bokuto-san again.

This is crazy. Suga cannot believe he would stoop so low as to beg...

He straightens his spine and decides to finally intervene, because this whole situation is just unfair. “Hey, no, wait a minute, Daichi. He already met the guy once, I haven’t. Do it for me first!”

Judging by the look Daichi is throwing him that’s not the kind of help he was expecting from Suga. Tough luck, Suga has kept quiet about this for months, there’s no way he’s going to let Tooru have this.

“Kou-chan he already threw you a party I think he’s done more than enough for you!”

“What does that have to do with anything, it’s my birthday today! Besides, I was already cheated out of meeting _him_ today. Did you know dad met him while he was waiting for me at the station?”

“What?”

They turn to look at his father, who’s busy listening intently to something Daichi’s mother is telling him. He must feel their eyes on him though, because he turns almost immediately and attempts an awkward wave at them all.

“I can’t believe Sugawara-san would betray me like this...” Tooru is muttering under his breath, a scowl on his face.

Suga nods in agreement but stops at Daichi’s next words. “Is he sure it was him?”

“It seemed like, why?”

“Well, I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure Bo is already in Australia right now for the World Cup.”

The World Cup. That’s true.

Then what...?

Suga looks back at his father and sees him laugh at something Sawamura-san says. He hadn’t seemed too sure, to be honest, quite the opposite but he knows what Bokuto Koutaro looks like, why would he say he spoke to him when it’s not the truth?

“I saw him talking to someone on a black SUV back at the station. I couldn’t see who it was but dad told me it was Bokuto-san...”

He expects Tooru and Daichi to be as confused by this as he feels but instead they freeze, their faces masks of horror and dejection. Daichi looks two seconds away from throwing up everything he’s eaten from the beginning of the year to now. “Y-you saw a SUV?”

“Yes?”

“But you didn’t see who was inside?” Daichi is stammering. Daichi never stammers, unless Suga is pointedly trying to make him nervous with his presence. Also known as flirting.

Suga tenses too and dread and worry mix into something dark and heavy on his stomach. He replays all his hypotheses from before, he lists them one by one in his head. “What are you saying, Dai? You think I should worry?”

And Daichi’s expression changes again, to something mortified and apologetic. “Oh, no. Of course not. I just...I remembered that Bokuto told me he’d fly out later than his team because he had a...personal commitment he couldn’t miss but he said to keep it on the low...”

Suga studies the way his hands are fidgeting around the glass of his flute, the slight nervous flush of his cheeks and as unsure as he feels he chooses to believe his words. It’s his birthday today, and he chooses to let himself feel reassured.

Ayame, after following the discussion in uncharacteristic quiet, shrugs her slim shoulders and regards them all with a curious look. “Why do you all hate SUVs? They make the prettiest documentaries underwater!” she asks at last and they all gulp down their drinks to hide nervous chuckles.

 

“I am telling you they won 27 to 25 in their second set!”

“Absolutely not, it was 32 to 29. 27 to 25 was the fourth set...”

Suga hides his laughter behind his palm as he watches Nishinoya fume and Tanaka become the same colour as lobster. Tooru is smirking at them both and thumbing on his phone to search for a result he’s already sure of.

Never question Oikawa Tooru on his volleyball stats and results knowledge, you will not win. Not ever. In his first year Suga nearly lost fifty bucks because of it.

He stands on his tippy toes to whisper “be good” in Tooru’s ear and presses a kiss on his cheek, like he so often does. Tooru bumps their noses together and smiles a smile that’s more a smirk.

“Only because you asked so nicely, Kou-chan,” he says back, loud enough for the other two to hear and bites the tip of his nose playfully.

Tanaka and Nishinoya suck in noisy breaths.

That turn into goofy grins when Suga winks reassuringly at them.

Tooru will not behave, it’s not in his DNA to leave matters like this alone. But maybe, just maybe, he’ll take 1140 yen instead of 2280 from their pockets. Before Suga would have simply sent Hajime to keep an eye on him but now...well, he can hardly do that with the situation those two are in.

He searches the small crowd for the man in question and finds him talking with Daichi and his father. As soon as he’s done though and listening to Daichi’s reply he throws a fleeting look Tooru’s way. Instinctive, natural. Suga catches it, like he catches the dark scowl that follows.

A pang in his chest, he turns his back to it, he learned a long time ago not to stick his nose in these two’s business, and joins the kids, who are busy describing the flowers in the garden to Suga’s nana and to Taka.

Ayame is busy describing anyway, Kaede, for his part, nods along and whispers soft corrections for his sister and grandma to communicate to the other two. It’s clear he’s feeling shy in front of all these strangers, but the fact that he’s standing so close to Taka instead of attached to Sawamura-san’s skirts is a progress. It’s a big enough progress to make Suga smile.

“Suga-san!” Kaede near yells at the sight of him without really realizing and moves a little to stand beside him instead.

“We were telling your nana and Aone-san about the garden!” Ayame tells him with a bright smile and absentmindedly strokes the leaves of the azaleas.

“I heard, you stopped at the wisteria, didn’t you?”

Ayame nods and continues her tale. “Yes! So Suga-san told us to wear these hideous yellow hats and took pictures of us in them, because Suga-san is secretly evil...”

Suga makes to interject but he’s too shaken by laughter to make any sense.

“And Mrs. Devaux gave us these plastic rakes to collect the leaves-”

“A very appreciated gift that you never bother to use.”

“Shhh, Suga-san! I’m trying to tell a story here!”

Suga raises his palms in surrender, tongue in cheek, and everybody else laughs, included Kaede. To the lull of his sister’s voice he steps closer to Suga and rests his head back on Suga’s side.

Suga cards his fingers through his thick, dark hair and when Kaede looks up he blows him a playful kiss, lips puckered comically and cheeks hollow, that has Kaede giggling in the fabric of his shirt.

If he weren’t so busy looking down and up to his children, to Kaede clinging on him, then to Ayame, red in the cheeks and passionate, talking about their afternoons together with wide gestures and grown-up words Suga remembers teaching her, he would notice the looks the others are throwing _his_ way.

He would notice Taka bright with joy for him. He would notice Sawamura-san studying him, torn between apprehension and satisfaction, and he would fret over the suspicious brightness of his nana’s eyes.

As it is Suga keeps stroking Kaede’s hair, focused on Ayame’s speech he mouths her the words she forgets. He has eyes for no one else – when his children are involved.

 

The longest table of the bunch is moved from the side of the backyard to the centre of the two gazebos and everyone sits to eat. From what Suga can see most of these dishes could be easily eaten standing up but the sense of companionship that gives eating at a table together is something he will never protest.

It’s his family, both sides of it reunited.

It’s the most beautiful sight in the world.

Just this one table for twelve is a bit of a tight fit but nobody protests that either. Taking another table would mean too much effort and being too far away from each other. They all prefer it this way.

As a crowd they insist Suga takes the seat at the head of the table and for a moment Suga stops, he hesitates. It’s never been his seat, not at home in Miyagi or back in Meiji, here in this house, but he guesses it comes with being the ‘’birthday boy’’. The centre of attention.

He’s not familiar with this feeling either. He sits there all the same.

His father and his nana are by his right side, and on his left Kaede, Daichi and then Ayame. The others keep changing seats according to who they are talking to and on opposite side, at the table tail Tooru raises a glass to him and proposes a toast.

Suga stops him with a glare before he can call for a speech as well.

“To Koushi,” he says when everyone has quieted down, “who makes every room he’s in always a little brighter.”

“A _lot_ brighter,” Ayame hurries to correct him and they all clink their flutes together between snickers.

“You got told off by a nine years old, Oikawa-san!”

“Yeah, how does that feel?”

More jeers come from that end of the table and Tooru is almost speechless with indignation.

Almost.

“Why is everyone always so mean to m-”

Thankfully he’s interrupted before he can finish.

“To Suga!” Daichi intones again, loud, louder, and looks pointedly at the rowdiest of the bunch.

Suga rolls his eyes at it all, at the ridiculous people he’s friends with, but at the cheers that follow he can only nod in thanks. He nods, he bows his head. It’s not nearly enough to convey his gratitude.

Nothing could ever be enough.

His father puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes it. “Happy birthday, kid,” he says and he sounds strangely choked up.

“Happy birthday, Suga-san!” Kaede echoes and with him everyone, shouting every variation of his name possible.

Their eyes on him Suga blushes and attempts an impatient shrug. “Well, go on. Eat!”

He gestures for them to dig in and nearly spills his champagne all over the pristine white tablecloth. He really was not made for the spotlight.

What follows is laughter, though, and the clinking of porcelain and metal and glass. Then more laughter, and only laughter.

 

From beneath a table appear speakers and suddenly music is playing. Suga recognizes it immediately. No wonder he couldn’t find his CDs anywhere the other day, Tooru had taken all his favourites to Daichi’s.

First it’s movie soundtracks and classics as a background while they eat and chatter, then it rises, gets louder for them to dance to.

Suga has to act like the social butterfly he never was and changes partners with every song. First it’s his father and they engage in a Macarena that has everybody laughing and cheering, until Nishinoya tries to join by attempting a headstand and nearly breaks a bone. Daichi’s mother leads him to an uptempo waltz to keep him from trying again and oh, Suga is so grateful she decided to stay tonight.

Ayame and Tooru are dancing a rock ‘n’ roll – following what rhythm Suga is not sure – and Ayame’s cheeks are red like mature apples. Suga doubts it has anything to do with how much she’s moving. Tooru’s handsomeness strikes again, and Suga would be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved, and a little amused, by this turn of events.

Better Tooru than him, to be honest, especially considering how misguided Ayame’s crush on him was right from the beginning.

Daichi and Suga’s nana, who are rolling around slowly hand in hand, approach him and his father long enough for Daichi to whisper not so quietly in his ear “I’m grateful Oikawa-san helped me plan this but if he thinks I won’t kick his ass for _that_ then he’s sorely mistaken.”

Suga and nana laugh but his father has a strangely sympathetic look on his face.

“It’s just a dance, Daichi, a harmless crush. She’s bound to get them now, you know...”

Daichi knows, but that doesn’t mean he’s ready to accept it. He says so, both with lightness and unbearable nostalgia.

“It’s not easy for a father, seeing his child grow up,” his father interjects and he and Daichi share a look Suga is not sure he understands.

But he understands this: “But if they never really get to I think that would be even more painful...”

_You can’t hide your child in a bell jar, to watch the world without the chance to experience it._

They have all stopped swaying and Daichi sighs at Suga’s words, somehow he understands exactly what it is he means to say. He always understands the things that matter, not everything but that which is harder for Suga to express, that Suga doesn’t say at all he somehow manages to read it all in the line of Suga’s mouth, or the crease between his brows.

They look into each other’s eyes and whatever it is Daichi sees in Suga’s, in a breath he relaxes. “Yeah, you’re right.”

A pause, during which Suga starts to smile.

Then “I guess,” Daichi adds at last, just to annoy him.

He just barely avoids the –gentle – punch Suga aims at his gut. “A-ha, too slow!”

And he nearly walks into Tooru’s back.

“A-ha, too cocky!”

“Daddy, what are you doing?” Ayame very nearly screeches in indignation and the adults present all snicker or snort except for Daichi, who’s too busy being mortified.

“I’m sorry, baby, I didn’t see you there,” he babbles, a hand on the back of his neck. “I thought you were on the other side of the garden...”

Ayame rolls her eyes at his apology and tells Tooru to excuse her because “My father is very protective of me so I better agree to a dance so he doesn’t feel put aside.”

Tooru bows at her while Daichi gapes. He stares back at Suga in search for an explanation.

“I recently introduced her to Jane Austen,” is what he gets.

“Of course you did.”

“Jane Austen was so cool, dad! Did you know almost all of her letters to her sister were destroyed ‘cuz she was so nasty about her neighbours? Imagine if she had known Kinoshita-san and his dog!”

Daichi still seems shocked, but the fact that Ayame has returned to her straight-forward, irreverent ways is obviously reassuring to him.

She tugs at his hand and settles with her feet on his. “You wanna dance or not, daddy?”

“Aren’t you a little old to dance on my feet?”

“Hel-um, absolutely not!”

Daichi is so relieved he lets the almost curse word slide.

Suga smiles at the sight these two make, so alike in so many ways and says “Seems like we don’t have to worry too much yet.”

Daichi smiles back, first at Ayame then at him. “Seems like it.”

They sway away and all around the garden, but not before Ayame has pointed a finger at Suga and declared his next dance will be with her.

Suga nods and says he’ll be delighted and follows them with their eyes until they have disappeared behind Tanaka and Hajime’s frames.

“That kid is too much,” his nana says, thoroughly amused. “And Kaede-kun too, so precious.”

“Yes, they are great kids,” Suga agrees and he adds no more, because if he did he’d never be able to stop listing all the reasons why. Why they are so wonderful, why he’s so lucky to have them in his life. Why he’s come to love them so and think of them as his own.

Why – and how - they’ve so easily become a part of him, settled in the space between his ribs, right where his heart is beating.

He never could express it. Eight years of college, five languages studied, and he doesn’t know a single word strong enough to describe it. He’s starting to doubt one even exists.

His father places a hand on his arm and with strange care he tells him “They seem to really love you, Koushi.”

_Love._

Love, not like.

Suga averts his eyes from him to look for Kaede, who’s standing by the wisteria with Taka in pleasant silence. To his surprise Kaede turns right away and meets his gaze with a small smile, a timid wave. “I know,” Suga hears himself say. _I_ _know_ _they_ _do_.

“I love them too.”

Dad nods and for a moment he seems about to hug him, it’s only being in public, standing still in the middle of the dancing area that stops him. Nana has no such qualms and takes his hand in hers to squeeze it.

Now Suga notices the tears gathering fast at the corners of her eyes.

“Do you want to dance?” he asks just as fast and his nana nods, agrees with a wet laugh.

They spin around for two songs and all the while they don’t say a word. To the last notes of Armstrong she cups his face in her strong hands and presses two kisses on his cheeks. It feels much like a blessing.

 

“I like Aone-san,” is the first thing Kaede tells him when they start a quickstep to the Supremes. “I didn’t have to say anything to him.”

Suga smiles and lifts him up for a spin that has them both breathless with laughter. “Yeah, Aone-san is nice that way. He’s not much of a talker either.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, he’s really shy...”

This seems to surprise Kaede. “People like him get shy too?”

Suga throws a swift look Taka’s way, at his imposing presence, his wide shoulders, his involuntary scowl. “Absolutely. Appearance has little to do with a person’s character, Kaede.”

“But I think, because Aone-san knows how he must look to others he works twice as hard to convey how kind and respectful he is.”

Kaede looks his way too and slowly he nods. He makes his and Suga’s arms swing. “Do you work hard at it too, Suga-san?” he asks in contemplation, like he’s trying to figure something out.

“Well, I’ve been told I look as threatening as a cotton ball but yeah I always try hard not to make people uncomfortable.”

They slow down till they are only barely swaying and out of nowhere Kaede circles his waist with his arms. “You were the only person I didn’t know who didn’t make me feel that way. Never ever.”

The music fades to background noise at his words.

Suga closes his arms around his shoulders – his tiny, precious shoulders - and bows down to press a kiss on his hair. “Never ever? Not even when we first met?”

“No. I was nervous but I never wanted to run away from you.”

It’s simple, it’s straight-forward like only children’s logic can be and it causes a weight to settle above Suga’s heart. A good weight, warm and lovely, that only amplifies how loud Suga’s heart is beating.

Louder, but not faster. Inside his chest it’s perfectly calm.

He kisses Kaede’s hair once more.

_I love you, I do._

_I love you more than I’ll ever be able to express._

“Switch!” Someone yells behind them and Ayame comes running, with her father trailing helplessly behind.

“Switch,” she says again and lets Daichi go to take Suga’s hands in hers.

Kaede huffs, for a beat he doesn’t seem at all willing to let go, but he finds his smile again when Daichi tells him to stand on his feet. Suga nods at him, “We’ll dance again later,” he says and that’s enough to convince Kaede wholly. He and Daichi are gone soon in a rush of pacey whispers.

Ayame insists on leading Suga into the next song and Suga has to nearly bend in half when she attempts twirls and twists.

“Are you having fun, Suga-san?

It’s a harmless question, or it would be if it weren’t for the apprehensive look she’s trying to hide with wide smiles.

Suga pulls them back a little so they don’t dance into one of the tables and stares straight into her eyes so she’ll know he’s not lying. “Yes, I am. Very much.”

“I can’t believe you did all this for me...”

Finally he voices it.

“Of course we did, Suga-san! You deserve it!”

Another spin and this time Ayame spins with him, till their arms are tangled and their heads are light with dizziness. “You deserve nice things,” she whispers almost in the fabric of his shirt and something in her eyes tells him this - this party, tonight, - was all her idea.

Sweet, darling Ayame.

“Thank you,” he whispers back and at the earnestness of his voice she blushes.

“F-for what, I didn’t do anything...”

About the things she does with her heart on her sleeves Ayame always keeps quiet. His sweet Ayame, she tries to hide her golden heart behind cheers and whistles, because she’s too embarrassed by it, because she’s too busy shielding her brother from the curious eyes of the world.

And as she keeps quiet Suga decides to do the same, he doesn’t bring it up again and they spin wildly around the room till they are more than a little out of breath and shapes and figures are a blur before and all around them.

“Wow, Jane Austen never says balls are so tiring!”

“That’s because they kept it tame in the 1800.”

“I would think so,” Daichi calls a few steps away, still with Kaede on his feet, “I can’t really picture ladies squeezed in corsets wrecking havoc on the dance floor like you two just did!”

Ayame looks about to protest but then she must think better of it because all she does is jut her chin and give her father a haughty glare.

“Ladies don’t start fights,” she tells Suga and before all that conviction he can only nod in agreement.

“You are no lady, Aya, drop it...”

“Am too, _Kaede_!”

“Don’t start you two!”

“Please, it’s my birthday...”

At Suga’s words the kids bite their tongues and apologize. “And you know Ayame, being a lady isn’t all that fun.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I mean think about it, the ladies in Jane Austen’s times couldn’t vote, they were forced to be dependent on men, be them their fathers, or husbands or even brothers...”

“B-brothers?”

Ayame throws a look at Kaede, who’s smirking now, and shudders. “You know what, Dede? You are right, I am no lady!” she declares after a brief pause and her eyes are blazing as if she’s daring her brother to talk back or argue.

Kaede doesn’t, this was his aim all along.

“It was exhausting anyway...” she continues and shakes her head as if to shake away the last of her lady-like behaviour.

Suga and Daichi share a look and a relieved sigh just as the song ends.

“Good for you baby, ladies at the time couldn’t even play volleyball,” Daichi says and the thoroughly horrified look in Ayame’s eyes has them all gasping for air.

“T-That’s so cruel...” she is muttering in complete disbelief. Kaede pats her on the shoulder, more than a little condescending, but she’s too ‘upset’ to get offended.

A chorus of arcs starts, a tentative harp follows creating pure beauty, and Suga smiles. “Oh, I love this song...” he says and prepares himself for a slow waltz with his not so much a lady.

Before he can even get in position though, Kaede snatches Ayame’s arm away and tugs her to him. Then he gives Daichi’s back a pointed push and says, with all the innocence in the world “I need to show Aya something, _you_ dance with Suga-san daddy.”

And in the blink of an eye he’s gone, dragging a confused Ayame behind.

_Sneaky little thing..._

“Um...”

Daichi scans the surroundings for him, almost frantic, like he wants to stop him, call him and Ayame back here with them. Between them. He’s stiff as a violin chord.

Suga looks at him, takes in his nerves, and only likes him more. Through his own nerves he almost wants to laugh. He’s in love with a man who’s so easily embarrassed he can’t even step seamlessly in a dance.

That’s never happened to him before. Being in love, yes, but also simply feeling for a man of this kind. He’s blushing already  and nothing has even happened.

Conscious of people’s eyes on him – on them - Suga takes a step toward him and only that, finally, has Daichi turning back around to face him.

“So...”

“So?”

He looks scared, nearly, almost quite, and if Suga weren’t so busy finding him so adorable he’s sure he would be in no better shape. There are butterflies fluttering in his stomach, tickling him with their wings but as the volume of the music increases he finds himself holding a hand out for Daichi to take.

“So, if you are not going to ask me then I’ll just have to do it myself.”

A dance, that’s all he wants.

He makes to say it but Daichi has already taken his hand in his, unexpected but wonderfully predictable at once, and it’s not necessary anymore. He rests his other on Daichi’s shoulder, while Daichi’s free hand falls to his waist, a little too high, still a little too formal.

They begin to sway just as the lyrics start and Nat King Cole’s voice fills the garden. Suga does his damned best not to listen too closely to his words.

_‘When I fall in love it’ll be forever,_

_Or I’ll never fall in love...’_

He fails straight away, at the very first ones, and colour spreads quick to his cheeks too.

“So...” Daichi starts again and when Suga echoes him, exactly like before, they both snort.

“Are you having fun?” he asks. Now, at this, Suga smiles.

“Your daughter asked the same thing.”

“And what did you tell her?”

He makes Daichi spin and answers only when they are face to face again, still swaying in place. “The truth, that I am.”

Daichi searches him for lies, any trace of boredom or discontent and grins as he finds none. “Really?”

Suga looks away from his eyes for a moment, to take in again just how much this man has done for him tonight, and instinctively he takes a step closer.

The fairy lights are casting impossible shadows on their faces, playful, and Daichi’s skin is golden and brown shades. His eyes are so dark they seem to absorb all the light that manages to catch them.

“Everything looks so beautiful, Daichi...”

_‘When I give my heart it will be completely_

_Or I’ll never give my heart...’_

Daichi tightens his grip on him and his thumb starts to draw slow circles in the fabric of Suga’s shirt. “Everybody helped, it wasn’t just...Oikawa-san and Aone-san especially, we decided most things together and Iwaizumi-san helped lift the tables, and the party, of course, was Ayame’s idea...”

“I know.”

At this Daichi falls quiet. “But now I’m thanking you,” Suga continues.

“Thank you for tonight. I...I love it.”

_I love you._

Daichi’s eyes soften. “I’m glad.”

They dance in silence till the song is over and only the fact that they are in public, that there are ten people watching keeps Suga from moving closer still and rest his cheek against Daichi’s, breathe in the comforting smell of his skin and lose himself in his warmth.

_‘And the moment I can feel that you feel that way too_

_Is when I fall in love with you.’_

Hajime steps in for the next song, a cheery pop song that has the kids jumping around with their grandma, and right away Suga thanks him for coming.

“I know it must be hard for you...”

But Hajime silences him quickly. “Tonight is about you, Suga. Oikawa and I are mature enough to understand that.”

So they dance and twist and Hajime laughs and it sounds honest. He takes Suga in his arms for a quick dip and when Suga tries to do the same he nearly drops the poor guy on the ground.

“Holy shit, you’re heavy!”

Hajime answers to that by lifting Suga up, an arm under his knees the other around his waist, and spins them around till Suga claps his shoulder in protest.

“You jerk!” he says when he finally sees straight and Hajime holds him in apology through the music.

“Sawamura-san is looking at you,” he whispers at one point, so soft only Suga can hear.

Suga doesn’t turn but he knows it’s true. He can feel his eyes on him, sending shivers down his spine.

He always knows.

He moves back a little and finds Hajime smiling, just a bit on this side of smug but mostly happy. It takes him a moment to realize Hajime is happy _for_ him.

“He’s been looking at you all night,” he adds, needless and fundamental.

Suga doesn’t say anything to that but when the song is over and Hajime squeezes him in a hug he presses a kiss on his cheek and whispers “I’m so glad you came” in his ear.

Then he’s dragged away by Tanaka and Nishinoya and in the blink of an eye he finds himself trapped like ham in a sandwich. A very excited, energetic sandwich.

 

The music is turned down low after a couple of neighbours protest and Suga is weirdly grateful. Just in the last couple of hours he’s sure he must have lost at least 5 pounds, and he straight-on couldn’t have survived another dance with Nishinoya.

That man is dangerous.

And Suga is officially too old for this shit.

He gets himself a glass of water as soon as he’s managed to run away and looks around the garden, at all the important people in his life, somehow gathered all in one space and mixed in odd groups. Hajime and Daichi are talking excitedly about something near the backyard door, almost covered in shadows and Tanaka butts in from time to time and makes them both laugh.

They look like a squad of sorts, all so handsome and well built, strong and with a good head on their shoulders. Suga is not surprised they get along but he does blink at Taka and Nishinoya arguing, Taka in soft tones and Nishinoya red in the face with fervour.

When he moves closer to listen Suga understands why: Nishinoya found out Taka went to Dateko, more than that he was a Middle Blocker for the legendary Iron Wall, and is hellbent on convincing him he could have received any block follow-ups his team would have thrown at him.

_Good luck with that, Nishinoya._

If there’s one thing Taka is ready to fight about is his old team’s good name.

He walks away quick, he has no intention of getting caught in the middle of that, and is immediately stopped by Tooru, who’s been busy charming nana and Daichi’s mother for the last fifteen minutes.

“Kou-chan, the man of the hour!” he says as he throws an arm around Suga’s waist. “Nice evening, isn’t it? Not a cloud in sight. I told Sawamura-san it wouldn’t rain but he still insisted on these gazebos...”

“That’s my son for you,” Daichi’s mother interjects with an almost helpless shrug of her shoulders. “He never takes chances on things like these.”

“I like the gazebos, they make the space look cosier...”

“Ah, Kou-chan, always the romantic.”

Suga elbows Tooru gently in the side and causes him to yelp in outrage. “Is this how you treat the man who spent the entire day working on this place for you?”

“What are you talking about? I have been nothing but nice to Daichi tonight...”

“Very funny ah-ah.”

His nana and Sawamura-san chuckle at their antics and Sawamura-san wastes no time asking how long they’ve known each other. They get that a lot.

“Oh boy, eons feels like...”

“Oy, Kou-chan! Stop being so mean!”

“I meant because it’s hard to think of a time when you weren’t my best friend...”

The unexpected tenderness of his words throws Tooru off for a loop and he tugs him closer to his side. “Never thought I’d hear you say something like that, Koushi.”

And it’s the use of his full name that makes Suga understand how touched he really is. He smiles. “I think it’s around nine...? Yes, nine years,” he tells Sawamura-san.

“We met in our last year of high school, our teams played against each other in tournaments...”

“Yes, of course the first time we met my team won,” Tooru interjects.

“That’s false, the first time we met my team won, it was that practice match where you only played the last set...”

“Oh. Right. Well, I won the first official match.”

“And _my_ _team_ won the second one.”

Suga doesn’t add ‘and then we qualified for Nationals’ because he knows it’s something that still leaves a bitter taste in Tooru’s mouth, that he wasn’t able to lead Seijoh – Hajime, Matsukawa, Hanamaki and the others – to victory.

“But we only became friends when we found ourselves at Meiji...” he says instead and Tooru throws a grateful look his way. “Took us months because we were still in rivals mode at the beginning.”

“Yeah, then Koushi here saved me from a very awkward date one night and I became powerless to his charm...”

The story is a little more complicated than that, though. Yes, it was an awkward date but it was so because Tooru was sick as a dog and refused to admit it. Suga had tried telling him not to go, to stay inside the dorm and rest but of course he ran into him at a coffee shop near campus not even an hour later. Saw him casually leaning back on his chair and making conversation wearing just a short-sleeved shirt – this in _January_ \- and positively dragged him back to their room. The power of indignation had somehow made him three times stronger.

He put Toou to bed, nearly smothered him under piles and piles of blankets and even attempted making him soup. When it came out awful he ordered it instead and in all his goodness he paid for it himself. He even agreed to watch X-Files reruns with him.

Tooru had been grateful for it all, sure, -  a week later he was already well enough to attend practice - but more than that Suga thinks he was impressed with his ability to boss him around and have him do exactly what he wanted. Which, in that particular case, was rest and not act like a whiny baby, to use Suga’s words at the time.

“After that, it’s history.”

That’s how Tooru concludes and Suga is inclined to agree. He wasn’t lying when he said that he can’t picture life without Tooru. After all these years spent together, he doesn’t even want to try. It’s not just that Tooru is his best friend, you see, it’s that Tooru was – _is_ \- the first, real friend he ever had. The first person he felt like he could open up to, the first who tried to convince him of his worth.

As if he can somehow sense the turn Suga’s thoughts have taken Tooru leans down and kisses his temple, loud and obnoxious because that’s just how Tooru is. In public especially.

“Jeez, Tooru, Saint Bernards drool less than you!”

“Kou-chan how dare!”

Nana and Sawamura-san are full-on laughing now and they only stop at Ayame’s voice cheering someone on right behind their turned backs. Who that someone she’s cheering on is? Suga’s father, curiously enough.

Suga’s father, who is hunched down a piece of paper with the children looking curiously from behind his shoulders.

“What’s going on here?” Sawamura-san starts and she fixes Ayame and Kaede with a stern look. “Don’t tell me you are bothering Sugawara-san...”

Dad lifts his head from the sketch he’s drawing and gives her a reassuring smile. “Absolutely not, Sawamura-san. I was the one who brought this up.”

This being the carvings the kids had asked for when Suga was back in Miyagi.

Suga cranes his neck to take a peek of what his father’s drawing. It’s Ayame’s mermaid, sitting on a rock and passing her fingers through her hair. “This is beautiful, dad.”

“Thanks, Koushi. But it’s easy when people have a clear idea of what they want, like this little miss here.”

Ayame beams at the praise.

“For Kaede-kun he just asked me to do ‘Miss Onyx’ so that too was easy.”

His father hands them the other sketch and it’s uncanny, everything from the puffy tail to the moustache dot under her nose is perfect. Even her eyes, wide and bright like headlights.

“Sugawara-san draws really well...” Kaede says in a near whisper. In front of all these people, three of which are nothing more than strangers to him, he talks without stuttering or lowering his eyes.

Suga moves to stand behind him and places a hand on his shoulder. His smile is so wide it threatens to split his face in halves. “You are very good too, baby.”

At that Kaede blushes and the corners of his mouth twitch upward.

“You should show me your drawings someday, Kaede-kun,” his father says and looks gently at Kaede, who nods down to his feet.

“Yeah, Dede is the artist of the house!” Ayame interjects, she looks as happy that Kaede is talking as Suga feels.

She even puffs her chest with pride, so obvious it makes her brother laugh too, half embarrassed half in pleasure.

Suga’s father puts the sketches in the pocket of his trousers and promises to start working on the pieces as soon as he gets back home.

“There is no rush, Sugawara-san!” Ayame hurries to say, “if you can’t it’s fine.”

_Ayame has grown so much in the past few months..._

Dad tells her not to worry, that it’s a pleasure to work on such creative pieces and pats Ayame’s head softly, as if he’s not sure he should. Ayame grins at him and that’s all the encouragement he needs to do it one more time.

Suga looks at them both, then down at Kaede, and all of a sudden his chest becomes too small for his heart. It’s not a new feeling, ever since he met these kids – and Daichi – it’s like his heart is growing in sizes, a little more every day.

He’s the Grinch that stole Christmas...only without the unfortunate green fur.

Or maybe he’s just a man who never expected to love so much, to love so many people so deeply.

As if summoned by the quick beating of his heart, Daichi appears from the shadow of the house with a giant Santa-like sack and helped by Hajime and Taka places it delicately on the empty table by the other side.

He smiles. “What do you say, Suga? Feel like opening the presents yet?”

Suga skips to him as bubbling excitement makes his whole body buzz and that’s answer enough for everyone.

 

They all start gathering around the table and Suga reaches inside the jute bag for the first present of the bunch.

It’s from Hajime. Suga is careful not to rip the wrapping paper – it has little bees on! – and smiles at the black and pink jogging shoes inside the box.

“You don’t have excuses now, Suga. Next time I call you for a run I expect you to come...”

“I can’t believe you would treat me this way on my birthday.”

It’s just for dramatics, he can’t even begin to count the times he made up ridiculous excuses to get out of jogging with Hajime at ass o’ clock in the morning.

Daichi, standing next to him, is giving the man an approving nod. Of course he is, those two are birds of a feather, dismissive and utterly unsympathetic of Suga’s incapacity to handle morning.

Still, the shoes are gorgeous. “Thank you, Hajime.”

Hajime winks at him and smiles.

The next present is from Tooru and Taka, it’s not like them to buy presents together but when Suga sees what’s inside the fancy gift bag he nearly drops it on the floor.

Supple brown leather, vintage brass clasps and pockets upholstered with silky blue fabric  patterned of...little sea animals. Suga has never seen a more gorgeous bag.

“Tacchan sewed the fabric for the siding, we thought a simple brown leather bag wouldn’t be weird enough for you...”

There are also a couple of key chains inside, a clown fish and an adorable octopus, and a beautiful flower pin. “Oh, my God you guys...”

Suga doesn’t know what to say. He places the bag carefully on the table and strokes the fabric almost in wonder, then he launches himself in his friends’ arms. They catch him in mid air and squeeze him to their chests. Then, when a little too long has passed Tooru smacks his butt in front of everyone and tells him to stop being a sap.

“Also,” he whispers in his ear before Suga has moved away completely, “I have another present for you but it would have been highly inappropriate to bring it here in the presence of children.”

He winks salaciously at him and throws a meaningful look Daichi’s way.

Suga blushes to the roots of his hair. “T-Tooru!”

When everybody asks what his yelp was about Suga takes another present in his hands to avoid giving an answer.

Tanaka and Nishinoya got him a beautiful midnight blue sweater, wonderfully soft and cosy. Suga gives each a kiss on the cheek and smiles when they both blush – yes, even Nishinoya – and shrug their shoulders, self-conscious.

“We know it’s not really the season...”

“You guys, I love it!”

“Daichi-san helped pick the colour, so if you don’t like it...”

“I love that too, thank you.”

At this they finally nod and smile back.

Sawamura-san gives him a bracelet of three silver threads intertwined, beautiful and elegant like very few things Suga owns. At the clasp there’s a small, silver circle on which is depicted a koi fish, symbol of perseverance and strength and, Suga remembers with a stutter of his heart, loyalty in marriage.

He walks to Sawamura-san and asks her to help him put it on. He tries to thank her too but she shakes her head and presses a gentle kiss on his cheek.

“I should be the one thanking you, Suga-kun.”

‘Thank you for bringing new joy into this house’ the card hidden under the bracelet says. Suga doesn’t read it out loud, he just closes the little box and places it carefully  in the bag again. He will never throw it away.

Next is his nana’s present. It’s light, the way only fabric can be, and when he opens it he’s not the only one who sucks in a breath. It’s a kimono. Beautiful cobalt blue that fades into pale azure at the hem, and from the bottom start branches of peach trees in full bloom. Each branch, each flower is bordered in subtle golden and copper, it’s noticeable only the moment the light catches the seams, to perfectly match the shimmer of the obi.

“I’ve been working on this for nearly seven months,” his nana says, already smiling at the expression on his face and everyone but his father gapes at the information.

“You did this, Sugawara-san?”

“That’s amazing.”

“Wow!”

Suga kneels on the floor to be more or less face to face with her and she wastes no time taking him in her arms. She did all this...

She had cried just over a week ago because she thought she couldn’t finish this and give it to him in time, she had hiccupped in his shoulder because she thought she couldn’t be here to give it to him at all and now she’s here and she gave him this...

She did all this.

They separate but don’t move too far away. Nana holds his face in her hands and looks from one feature to the other, from his cheekbones to his mouth, his nose, his brows, his eyes.

“I picked the obi to match your eyes,” she says. “I had to make do with the pictures I have of you at home and my elephant memory, but I managed to get it exactly right.”

Suga hugs her again, even tighter than before, then he stands to open the last bunch of presents on jittery legs. His nana blows her nose - incredibly loud for such s tiny woman – and thankfully that’s enough to turn the atmosphere a little lighter.

Daichi’s present too is light, soft to the touch. As Suga unwraps it he can see Daichi fidget in nerves with the cuffs of his shirt. He wants to give him a reassuring smile, he wants to tell him he’s sure he’ll love it but in truth his fingers are shaking too.

He parts the two laps of paper and throws his head back in laughter. “Oh dear...”

He’d recognize that magenta anywhere. And sure enough when he lifts the shirt above his head it’s an adorable pink shrimp that greets him.

“I had it made special,” Daichi explains and Suga laughs again at the thought of Daichi going into a store and asking for a printed shrimp shirt in grown adult size.

“This is amazing!” he says and has half a mind to put it on right now but his father’s voice interrupts him.

“There’s something else, Koushi...”

Suga blinks at him, looks down at the table and sure enough, wrapped in the fabric of the shirt – a present within a present – was a small book, white cover with a lovely drawing in ink on the front and pages beautifully yellowed by time.

_So this is what Daichi was really nervous about..._

He opens it with tentative hands, without noticing the religious silence that has fallen around him, and immediately he recognizes the title, even though the book itself he’s never had a chance to read it.

Charles Perrault. Tales of Mother Goose.

_Fairytales..._

At the beginning of each tale - Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty... – is a beautiful drawing and the book, although the printing dates it years before World War II, is in stunning conditions. Not a stain, not a rip...

As if the magic in the words had protected it from aging.

“Oh, Daichi...”

“You said, um, you told me you didn’t know many bedtime stories so I thought...”

Woods and engravings, those had been his bedtime stories. And nursery rhymes he doesn’t really remember.

So Daichi got them for him. Daichi already gave him a fairytale of sorts, and not content he gifted him eight more.

In the middle of the book there’s space between two pages. Suga fits his nail there and opens where a bookmark lies in the crease. Only it’s not a bookmark, not a proper one anyway.

It’s a flower, one that Suga recognizes too well.

A dried camellia. Its petals still keep a shadow of the colour pink.

_Longing._

Suga raises his eyes from it – from the flower, from the book, from the message – to finally meet Daichi’s. In slow steps he reaches him and circles his shoulders with his arms. He’s only vaguely aware he’s shaking.

“Thank you.”

“Of course.”

And because he can’t do anything else he holds Daichi tighter for the few moments they are granted.

 

“Our turn, our turn!” Ayame chants as soon as she recognizes the packages wrapped clumsily in starry golden and red paper.

Suga opens hers first and smiles the brightest smile of the night when he sees the shrimp bobby pin, not the one Ayame has, but a nearly exact replica made in painted salt dough.

“So now we match, Suga-san!” she says, all of a sudden shy.

Suga leans down and opens his arms to lift her up in a hug. “Now we match, baby,” he agrees and kisses the tip of her nose. With both his hands busy holding her up he asks Ayame to put it on for him and she takes a lock of his hair between her fingers to do so, with surprising gentleness.

Next is Kaede’s present, and as emotional as tonight has been nothing could have prepared him for this.

He looks at the drawing before him, shaking in his grip, at the figures holding hands in a backyard filled with flowers and his eyes prickle with tears, that fast fall down his cheeks.

“This is us,” Kaede is telling him with unexpected strength. His chin on the table he points at each figure, even though there is no need, Suga already knows who they are.

Ayame, the figure in yellow and purple, long dark hair messy on her shoulders. Daichi, taller than all of them – but not by much – in one of his work suits. Kaede, the smallest figure in his favourite superhero shirt, and then him, Suga, dressed in light blues and smiling. All four of them together, standing forever still and happy in the garden they worked so hard to bring back to life.

The four of them and Onyx of course, who has climbed all the way up the picket fence and is smiling too at whoever is looking at the picture.

“See, Suga-san, we are all together...”

_All together._

_Like a family._

Suga clears his throat to cover a sob but Kaede shifts to look up at him all the same.

At the sight of his tears he freezes. “Suga-san, you don’t like it?”

“No, no!” Suga attempts a smile and dries his tears with the back of his hand. “Of course I do, I love it.”

“These...these are happy tears, Kaede.”

He kneels down, eyes still glistening, and asks Kaede if he can hug him. Kaede is in his arms before he can even finish the question. Faces hidden in the crook of the other’s neck, Suga lets more tears fall and he thinks he feels Kaede do the same.

When they move apart though, Kaede is only beaming.

“You did a great job, Dede!” Ayame tells him, proud to the point of smug, and tells Daichi to come see too.

Daichi walks over and looks down, at the drawing his son made. He stays quiet for moments, just gaping at the figures on the paper, then he says “This is wonderful, kid,” and his voice trembles like never before.

 

His father’s present is the last. He jokes to Suga and to the others that he doubts it could compare to those that came before, but Suga knows it’s just a way to distract him from how choked up he is.

Many of them are, after Kaede’s gift.

Tooru is looking at the starry sky in a poor attempt to hide it. Nana took two handkerchiefs from her purse, silently handed one to Sawamura-san as well and now they are both dabbing at their eyes and sniffling.

Suga’s heart still hasn’t settled down. “I will frame it as soon as I get home,” he promises, because this is something he needs to see every day. On his good days, on his bad. When he’s doubting himself and his place in the world, his place in this house.

He takes a deep breath and with a quick smile to his father he grabs the last present of the pile. A perfect rectangle wrapped in simple checkered black and white paper.

To his father’s encouragement he rips it and finds a stunning mahogany box, carved into vines that stretch and interlace to form hollows of black glass. On the lid of the box they open in a perfect oval and on the black glass beneath are painted in gold the contours of a rose.

“Open it,” his father says and after only a moment of hesitation Suga does.

Music fills the air and to cover the mechanism of the carillon vines grow thorns. Where the thorns don’t grow though, roses bloom, perfect all of them.

Suga thumbs at each and he can’t find the words, tonight has taken all of them away.

His father moves to stand by his side and presses a kiss on his hair. “Happy birthday, Koushi.”

His beard tickles like it always has and Suga tells him, the same way as he used to do when he was little.

The jingle that still plays a song Suga knows but never learned the lyrics of.

 

He makes a quick round to hug everyone, thank them all for the wonderful gifts and it’s only the prospect of cake that convinces Tanaka and Nishinoya to let him go, the hug they’ve trapped Suga in so fierce it threatens to suck all the air from his lungs.

Only there isn’t just one cake, there’s two, and Suga has double the candles to blow and twice as many pictures to take. Pretending to be out of breath from the first time he enlists Ayame and Kaede to help him blow the candles on the cheesecake – passion fruit, bless whoever had this idea – and somehow that means everybody but Hajime, who’s busy taking the picture, has to join.

As result of all the pushing and elbowing Suga and the kids nearly end up with their faces _in_ the cheesecake.

Nearly, but somehow dollops of cheese filling find their way on Suga’s nose and cheek anyway. Somehow as in his asshole friends did it, Suga didn’t see who it was at the moment but he bets on Tooru. It’s always Tooru.

And the flash keeps going off. Damn it, Hajime.

Suga only forgives them because of tonight. After all they did for him he can’t not. Also the cakes are delicious, both of them. In fact they are so delicious he has to make another round and kiss all his friends in thanks...

When he’s done he looks around smugly, now he’s not the only one who has cake on his face...

_A-ha._

The wisdom his hard-earned 26 years brought is already showing.

 

After that it’s more rounds of chatter, sitting at the table – again dragged at the centre of the tent – and exchanging sponge recipes with Taka, getting cleaned up by his nana and exchanging looks with Daichi. Neither of them can seem to help it, for his part Suga doesn’t even want to.

Kaede climbs on his lap at some point during the night and hides his face in his chest. Suga circles his tiny frame with his arms and without realizing he starts rocking him.

“You tired, baby?” he whispers in Kaede’s ear and Kaede doesn’t even try to deny it. He yawns in the fabric of Suga’s shirt and throws his arms around Suga’s neck.

Suga looks up and finds Daichi watching him. With a gesture he asks the hour, 10:30. No wonder the kid is tired.

He presses a kiss on Kaede’s hair and nuzzles him, insistent like a dog, just to hear him laugh.

“Suga-san, stop!” is all Kaede manages to get out between giggles, but he’s only holding onto Suga tighter.

Suga stops with one last kiss between his kid’s brows. “What do you say we get you to bed, uh?”

“You put me?”

He’s starting to forget his grammar too, he’s so cute. “Yeah, of course. I’ll put you in bed if you want me to.”

“Yes, please!” he says loud enough to attract half the table’s attention. Thankfully he’s too tired to feel embarrassed for it.

Suga stands with Kaede securely in his arms and looks around for...yeah, there she is, Daichi is already on her.

“I’m not tired, daddy,” Ayame is trying to tell him and it would be almost convincing if it wasn’t for how red her eyes are. Just as she’s walking away from him to hide behind Suga she yawns, long and obvious, and Suga has to laugh at the betrayed expression on her face.

“Stupid fatigue,” she mutters with her fingers in his belt loops.

Suga’s father, who’s sitting right next to them, feigns a cough to hide his laughter and shakes his head at Ayame’s antics. It seems he too has been charmed by these two munchkins.

Suga can’t say he’s surprised. His father has always loved children.

He and Suga share a smile above Kaede’s head and his eyes turn soft, the tense lines around them disappear for a never-ending second. Suga doesn’t have the courage to outright ask the reason.

_It’s really time you settle down, Koushi,_ Kobayashi-san’s voice echoes in his head.

_Don’t tell me you want to leave this poor man without grandchildren._

Of course Suga doesn’t.

Instinctively, he holds on to Kaede tighter.

“Come on, Aya, Suga said he’d put you to bed tonight,” Daichi is saying, now by Suga’s side, and trying to make eye contact with Ayame through his frame.

At this Ayame perks up. “Really?” she asks Suga.

“Uh-uh.”

And just like that she walks to Daichi and raises her arms to be picked up.

“I thought you weren’t _that_ tired, child,” Daichi teases but picks her up all the same. “Uff, I’m getting too old for this...”

Suga opens his mouth to share his opinion on that but Daichi raises a finger to shush him before he can get a syllable out. “Not a peep from you, Sug.”

Snickers at the table – louder in the general direction where Nishinoya and Tanaka are seated – and Suga gestures to zip his lips and throw the key away.

“We’ll be back in a few,” he tells the others.

Ayame says goodnight with her usual enthusiasm and waves at everyone with equal warmth. Kaede whispers a timid ‘bye-bye,’ clinging on Suga’s shirt as he attempts a small wave of his own.

Nana clutches at her chest before this sight. Suga can relate.

 

They walk in Ayame’s room because her bed is big enough to comfortably fit them both and even though they could easily do it alone the kids let themselves be tucked under the thin linen covers.

Daichi turns on the little light by Ayame’s nightstand and in silence he sits so far by the edge of the bed he’s almost at the foot of it. He watches Suga smooth the cover with uncertain hands, even though there are no wrinkles he still continues, and his knuckles bump into Daichi’s thigh, again and again. The time is what takes for the words to come to Suga, this he tells himself, and when they do he sings about a boy who, lost among the stars, couldn’t remember which was his home anymore.

“Chaque jour il flotte à la recherché de sa maison...”

So he picked the smallest, dullest star around and built a little house of rocks there.

“Mais...mais chaque jour il rencontre de nouvelles personnes qu’il n’a jamais recontrèes avant.”

Ayame hums along to the tune till her eyes slowly close – only five minutes have passed since she was still arguing over not being tired - and Suga brushes strands of hair away from her face.

“Et tout d’un coup la maison solitaire qu’il cherchait il ne le manqué plus.”

He leans down and presses a kiss on her forehead. She doesn’t even stir.

Just for Kaede he whispers, “Parce-que la maison est dans le coeur, pas dans un tas de briques.”

Kaede looks up at him with sleepy, watery eyes and smiles. “Coeur means heart, right, Suga-san?”

Suga smiles back and kisses the tip of his nose. “It sure does, my love.”

And Kaede closes his eyes too. Slowly, the grip he had on Suga’s fingers loosens and his breath deepens. Suga watches his small chest move for a while, - in and out, regular, - he strokes the protective arm Ayame has thrown around Kaede, as if afraid he would fall. There’s the shadow of a smile on both their faces and it tugs at the strings of his heart. Gentle but the vibrations resound everywhere.

In sleep they look so much alike. They look so much like Daichi.

Suga sighs and forces his eyes away. There are people downstairs waiting for him, he can’t spend the night standing guard to his children’s sleep. Can he?

He turns to where Daichi is, still watching him, and together they tip-toe out of the room.

“Are they going to be ok, sleeping together like that?”

“Yeah, I’ll get Kaede in his bed later. Jostling him too much now would only wake him up for good.”

They reach the bottom of the stairs and when Daichi catches him throwing looks behind him, to where the children are sleeping, he smiles. “Don’t worry,” he says and his eyes are soft even as they are twinkling in amusement.

Suga scoffs. “I’m not.”

“Alright, if you say so.”

“I do say s-”

Daichi’s thumb caresses the back of his hand. Before opening the door that gives to the backyard, and to the people waiting for them, Suga takes Daichi’s hand in his and squeezes it.

 

Not to disturb the children they all decide to end the party here. Suga catches more than a couple of yawns so it’s really not just concern that speaks there, but it’s just fine by him. Daichi asks him half a dozen times if he’s sure, and now it’s Suga’s turn to tell him not to worry.

“Tonight was lovely,” he whispers to him as they are taking the chairs inside.

And this much is enough to make Daichi blush. With a huff he moves the chairs in the small storage closet by the entrance and rolls up the sleeves of his button-up.

Suga looks at him, at the beautiful olive tones of his skin, at the muscles that ripple and shift with every gestures…and his breath catches in his throat.

There’s a scar on Daichi’s left arm, not long or badly healed, Suga never gave it much thought before, but it catches the lights of the house in the most familiar…

But it makes no sense.

Daichi doesn’t drive a SUV. And even if he did, what reason would he have had to be at the station this morning?

“Suga?”

Someone runs into him and Suga nearly falls on the floor. “Oh, sorry.”

He moves away from the door to let Nishinoya pass with empty trays and bottles and shakes every thought of this morning away. Thousands, maybe millions of people have scars on their arm, it’s hardly something unusual.

He chances another quick glance at Daichi and silently nods to himself. As always he’s reading too much into the smallest things. So much so he nearly forgets logic.

 

Only the lights are left to be put away but Daichi reassures them all he can deal with that himself, ‘tomorrow’ he adds as an afterthought, and everyone is too tired to argue with him.

Numbers are exchanged and more manly pats on the back than Suga can count. Tanaka and Nishinoya leave on Tanaka’s truck, but not before Suga has grabbed them both by the collar of their shirts and pressed obnoxiously noisy kisses on their cheeks.

“Now because you did that the chances of them driving into a lamppost have increased tenfold,” Daichi whispers in his ear as they watch them leave.

Suga hip-checks him. “Don’t be jealous,” he whispers back and Daichi sputters, red to the tips of his ears.

But with him Suga deems it best not to go further than a hug. He moves into his body for as long as he can take and his fingers curl around the fabric of Daichi’s shirt, then briefly in the short strands of his hair. He allows himself a moment when Daichi pulls him even closer, arms tight around his waist, and closes his eyes to breathe him in better, deeper.

He steps away too late, he knows objectively this has lasted too long, and yet it feels way too soon, way too short.

He walks to Sawamura-san and thanks her again for the gift. She waves his words off and pulls him into a warm grandma hug, kisses his cheeks with surprising fondness.

“Happy birthday again, dear,” she says.

Suga waves and follows everyone else outside the gate with a telling heaviness in his chest. Of things not done, of things not said.

Tooru and Hajime are arguing over which car to take to drive Suga’s nana to her hotel and it’s so them, so like the two men unit they’ve always been Suga finds himself grinning despite it all. In the shadow of the street lights he’s sure Taka is doing the same.

_These two…_

In the end they settle on Hajime’s car. Although much less expensive than Tooru’s it’s much, much bigger and they waste no more time helping nana inside. Suga closes the wheelchair in two swift gestures and fixes it with care in the trunk.

In Tooru’s trunk they put the bag with Suga’s presents and as he’s securing it with a belt – ok, two belts – Daichi’s book peeks through the hem. With a smile Suga traces the letters of the title and wraps it again in the shrimp shirt Daichi had made for him- Too careful, too tender.

One of these days maybe he could read these stories to the kids. In English of course. It could be a good way to get them to learn French, for a while now they’ve both been asking he teaches them.

Only after he’s read it for himself though. Fairytales are stories he was never much too familiar with…

“Sawamura-san is a good man.”

Suga starts at the words coming so sudden to his ears and turns around to face his father. His father, who’s smiling at him with a mixture of nostalgia and impossibly bright, serene happiness.

“Yes, yes he is.”

Under Suga’s uncomprehending gaze he places the book back in the bag with the same care Suga would have used and closes the trunk with a noisy thud.

“Give us a second, kids,” he calls out and shares a brief look with nana, staring at them out the open car window.

He walks back and Suga with him, till they are both in front of the gate again.

“Dad, what…?”

“This morning you asked me…you asked me why I never dated other women,” his father starts and his voice, although low, resounds certain in the air between them. “And I answered the way I answered. I said I didn’t want you to become like me in this.”

“I never want…I never want you to lose faith in the good things of life, Koushi, just because of what happened between your mother and me.”

These are things Suga already knows, he’s always known them, but it’s important to his father, this moment, that he tells them all out loud, so he nods. “I know, dad.”

His father nods too. He looks up to the ivy that has climbed its way up the iron pickets, to the glossy leaves that sway with the lull of the night breeze, and sighs. Slowly, he says “Sawamura-san brought us here.”

And Suga’s heart skips a beat, it just…stops for a second. A minute, a year. “What?”

He’s not sure he heard right, surely he didn’t hear right.

“It was Sawamura-san,” his father repeats. “He called me a couple of days after you left and told me how upset you were that nana couldn’t be with you on your birthday. I explained the situation to him and you know what he said? He said, I’ll find the way, but please trust me when I do.”

“He had Tooru-kun call us too, to vouch for him and when I was finally convinced he told me he had rented a black SUV complete with lift for nana’s wheelchair and he asked me to be ready to go by eight a. m today.”

Suga looks away too. His chest feels tight, so impossibly tight around all that he’s feeling.

_Daichi…_

It was Daichi all along…

His father continues. “And at eight a. m sharp he was outside my door. He was the one who drove us here.”

To Miyagi and back, in a single morning.

“But Daichi hates driving…”

It’s all he manages to say. Daichi hates driving. Having to deal with other drivers irritates him, he gets fidgety and nervous in the minutes it takes from here to Suga’s apartment in Meiji…but he drove over 200 kilometers this morning, in the matter of a few hours.

All for…

His father reaches out and cradles Suga’s cheek in his calloused palm. “Sawamura-san is a good man,” he says again and when Suga finally finds it in himself to look at him he sees that he’s smiling.

A little crooked, a little shaky but still a smile.

“I think you should go thank him.”

And with that he lets Suga go. “I’ll tell the others to wait for you.”

Suga is already looking for his keys. He nods to show he’s heard – faintly, through the thrumming of his blood in his veins, in his ears - and with a flick of his wrist he’s on the other side of the gate.

As if in a daze he walks to the front door, but it’s a strange sort of confusion, this, where everything around him is but a blur of color and yet he’s never before been more aware of himself, of the world, the ground beneath his feet. He knocks, gentle as not to wake the kids and it resounds in every part of his body.

Steps approach just as he’s raising his arm to knock again and Sawamura-san opens. When she sees who it is she smiles. “He’s still out in the backyard,” she says.

He didn’t even have to ask.

“Thank you, Sawamura-san.”

Even to his own ears his voice seems to come from miles away. But the next words Sawamura-san pronounces, he hears them loud and clear.

“Call me Sachiko, darling.”

He nods, he doesn’t trust himself to speak, - not to Daichi’s _mother_ \- and her smile widens at the blush spreading fast on his cheeks. She wants him to call her by her first name, they’ve only met once before and she’s already asking him so. Now of all times.

He must have it written all over on his face what it is he means to do.

He bows to her in acknowledgement and as the door closes once again before him he makes his way through the garden. He steps - _forward_ \- on the grass and between the flowers he chose, the seeds he planted. Roses, ivy, more roses, roses of every shade, bushes of jasmine, forsythia…

He reaches the back of the house, where the candles are still burning low, almost completely melted, and the fairy lights are casting shadows on every petal, every branch, every feature of Daichi’s face.

Daichi, he was studying the white gems of the honeysuckle- finally ready to become blossoms, - but he turns immediately at the sound of Suga’s steps.

“Suga?”

He calls, surprised but not too much. Not as he should be. “Did you…did you forget something?”

And now that he’s here Suga doesn’t know what to say. He didn’t think this through, not at all, not the way he always does. He didn’t think at all.

He wants to be smooth, he wants to say ‘yes, I did forget something’ only to step in closer and do what’s been on his mind for months. He wants to but he can’t.

He looks into the impossible warmth of Daichi’s eyes, at the thin, gentle line of his mouth but when he realizes it’s not enough – it’s not enough, it can’t be enough anymore - he bites the inside of his cheek and focuses on the hundred small lights dancing around them.

“Suga?”

So Daichi walks to him, meets him halfway near where the camellias grow. “Is everything alright?” he asks and he sounds concerned.

Suga nods, but in truth his brain is screaming at him. He’s making a fool of himself. Daichi is reaching out to him, reaching out to touch him and he’s rooted on the spot, heavy with all the things he wants to say. With all the things he wants to do.

They are so many he can’t even think of counting each and every one.

Still in silence - this stubborn, stubborn silence - he looks down, at Daichi’s arm. The tips of his fingers are just barely grazing Suga’s elbow, that is trembling, like the rest of him, and Suga sucks in a short breath.

It’s his left arm.

The scar catches the light, the same way as it did before, as it had this morning, and finally it is calm inside Suga’s head. Memories of the past few months, of every single touch they’ve shared, of every word they’ve whispered in their times alone all quiet down to images in the back of his mind, until all that is left is the perception of the present. Until all that is left is the way Daichi is looking at him now, the tenderness in his touch, the patience with which he is waiting.

Now, in this instant.

And just like that – because of that tenderness, because of that patience - Suga realizes he has no reason to be scared, no reason big enough to force him to back away. No reason could ever be big enough. Steady, he closes a hand around Daichi’s wrist and shifts to trace the length of the mark with the pad of his thumb.

“How did you get this?”

Daichi blinks, he doesn’t understand – maybe - but he answers all the same. “It was when I fell down the swing…”

_I jumped. From the highest spot in the sky I jumped and for a moment I swear , I swear that I was flying._

“That time you broke your leg?”

“Yeah.”

Suga smiles and his knees stop shaking. To his thumb he substitutes his lips and they travel down the scar to leave no inch cold. Again and again and again he kisses it.

Daichi trembles under his touch. “S-Suga?”

“You brought them here.”

He says it, at last. “My father and…and my nana. You drove all the way to Miyagi…”

_Just for me._

“I asked them not to say anything...”

“I know.”

His father didn’t need to tell him so but he knows.

Daichi shrugs and for a moment he seems to be waiting for Suga to thank him, thank him and then walk away, act awkward in front of this gesture, that speaks louder than words ever could. When Suga doesn’t, when he still stands only a few steps away from him, eyes fixed only in his, he brings his free hand up to scratch the back of his neck. “I thought it’d make you happy,” he says.

And that’s enough.

It’s…everything.

Suga takes one step closer, one and then another, till the tips of their noses bump gently together. “It did,” he says back and his breath mingles with Daichi’s, warm and shallow and shaky.

“You do.”

As the words still echo in the blow of the wind he closes the insignificant spaces still left between their bodies and kisses Daichi gentle, slow. The way he’s always wanted to, the way he’s always dreamed.

Suga kisses Daichi and colors explode behind his closed eyelids.

The world falls quiet, for the first time steady beneath his feet.


	27. Too much, too much, never enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A kiss is a hard thing to miss.

Suga kisses him. Suga is kissing him right now and Daichi turns to stone.

For a moment it’s like this is happening to someone else, it’s someone else’s lips Suga is kissing, someone else’s body pressing close against him. Someone else, anybody but him.

Daichi has spent so many hours, - weeks, months, - waiting for this that now he doesn’t know what to do with himself. His eyes open again, only instinct had forced them closed before, and looks at the thick veil of eyelashes fluttering on Suga’s cheekbones.

He looks at the faint freckles on his nose, so clear they are impossibly easy to miss, and the mole near his eye. The pink spreading fast on his cheeks and the shadows the lights are casting on his face.

He looks, for much too long he looks and nothing else and suddenly Suga is pulling away.

Away, away from him.

Chilly air slithers between their bodies and they are no longer pressed close, not as close as before. Just like that it’s over and Suga’s eyes are open wide, shining copper and gold and…and mortified.

Fuck.

Fuck. He blew it. Daichi blew it.

He’s been waiting for this, for months, all his life, and he messed up. How could he…?

“I’m sorry,” Suga is saying, he’s moving further and further away.

Somewhere bells ring, twelve echoes to greet the midnight. Daichi only lets two pass before he’s moving into Suga one more time, to reassure him, to fix this. To chase the warmth of his touch on his skin.

He puts his hands on Suga’s waist and even through the fabric of his shirt he can feel the shape of his hipbones. He traces them with his thumbs, soft, as gentle as he can be, and looks for Suga’s eyes again. “I wasn’t expecting it,” he says, he whispers against Suga’s cheek, “that’s all. You just caught me by surprise.”

_Please don’t think I was rejecting you._

_Please, try one more time._

He presses a kiss there, in the spot where dimples appear, and when Suga still hesitates he tells him it’s alright.

“It’s alright, Suga. It’s alright.”

_I want this. I want you._

_God, I want you._

Suga’s eyes rise to meet his again, finally, and they reflect each and every light in this garden, the golden hues near the irises are dancing as if flames trapped in a fireplace. His hands linger on Daichi’s chest, they curl around the cotton of his shirt, then, still tentative, they make their way up to his neck, and up still to cup his face.

Suga steps in closer, one more time nothing between their bodies, nothing between them but the words they still struggle to say, and kisses him, even gentler than before, even slower.

And this time Daichi feels everything, he feels it all.

First comes the warmth, the warmth Suga gives off surrounds Daichi, it engulfs him, so thoroughly the persistent night breeze blowing cruel on the city cannot reach them. So gentle, as gentle as Suga’s kiss, seeps into his bones but does not brand him. Sets his heart on fire.

Then it’s the fragrance of Suga’s skin, that which couldn’t be washed off of Daichi’s sheets, and it’s all around him, it covers the smell of the flowers, that of dewy grass and the stale of Tokyo. A spring breeze in summer, clean and fresh, sweet in the most subtle of ways.

Daichi burrows closer in this warmth that comes from deep within, burrows closer in this scent and Suga lets him. He parts his lips, at once at the barest pressure, and Daichi closes his arms around him, sudden, urgent. All that their kiss isn’t.

Because after the warmth Daichi is not shivering anymore, and after sunny spring days – never – spent rolling around in a never-ending meadow, is simply the way Suga is kissing him. The softness of his lips.

The way he teases him, opening up for Daichi to deepen the kiss and then moving away, for half the time of a blink, to trace the contours of Daichi’s mouth, nibble at his bottom lip if he dares disrupt this rhythm.

Daichi’s hands open and close where they are resting on the small of Suga’s back. They tug at the hem of his shirt, they slide down, beneath it, to seek real contact. When they find it, when they find the dimples at the base of Suga’s spine, the heat that his skin radiates Daichi gives up. He surrenders, completely.

Suga whimpers in his mouth and it’s soft, vulnerable - the way Suga allows himself to be only when they are alone together, - and Daichi chases it. He strokes smooth skin, he draws on the line of Suga’s spine, all to hear it again.

He is losing his mind. He feels the vibrations of sound, of breathless, contented hums and his perception of reality slips away. He’s shaking, he’s holding Suga in his arms and he’s shaking with everything he feels, with everything that Suga is.

So he slows down, more and more, till all he’s doing is breathe heavily against Suga’s lips. He rests his forehead on Suga’s and looks and looks at what’s before him.

Full lips, puffy and of the brightest red, for being kissed too long, for being kissed too hard - by _him_. Pink cheeks, heaving chest. Moles and freckles, scattered everywhere without a scheme, lovely and chaotic on translucent skin, a starry sky in reverse.

Suga still has his eyes closed.

Daichi loves him.

He leans in to kiss his eyelids, bites playfully at the tip of his nose. He kisses Suga’s lips again, and again and again, simple pecks and endless worship. With each kiss he tells himself this is the last and it never is.

“I need to go,” Suga tells him after hours, months, a lifetime, and his voice is broken and husky. “They are waiting for me.”

Daichi nods, he understands. “Of course.”

He takes Suga’s lips in another kiss, longer than the others. His hands move to cup Suga’s jaw, tilt his chin up just right. He moves his hair away from his face, he looks at him till his eyes tire.

“You are so beautiful.”

He doesn’t know what else to say.

The bobby pin near his ear takes Daichi back to that night of months ago, when he first drove Suga home and took a plastic shrimp out of his hair.

Suga had blushed then, like he’s doing now, but now everything has changed. Truly, at last.

A car horn echoes in the night and Suga links his arms behind Daichi’s neck. “Now I really have to go,” he says again, urgent and still so, so shaky. He kisses Daichi one more time.

Daichi’s knees have turned to jelly.

Inside his chest nothing if not pure chaos. His heart beats wild, then slow again with tenderness it aches, only to speed up once more when Suga comes near.

It settles in a slow, heavy drag as he watches Suga leave.

Their hands are the last to separate, clinging on tightly until the very last moment, the very last step.

“Goodnight Daichi.”

Daichi’s hand falls limp at his side, empty but still warm.

“Goodnight Suga.”

With a smile Suga leaves, so beautiful in the dying glow of the candles that once alone Daichi closes his eyes tight to make sure he has it, the image – the memory – of him forever locked in the most private part of his mind.

He stays outside for a long while. Suga’s presence somehow lingers, as the white behind your closed eyelids after you’ve looked into the light for too long. But Suga’s presence lingers in every space of this house. In the cutleries arranged in a different way than Daichi would have done, in the mess of the laundry room because somehow Suga still doesn’t know how to work Daichi’s washing machine. In the spare pair of slippers by the entrance, in Ayame and Kaede’s smiles.

And now, Suga lingers on Daichi’s lips too.

The candles die out, nothing but melted wax down the chandeliers and with a sigh Daichi finally makes his way inside.

His mother is waiting for him in the kitchen. When she catches sight of him she laughs and laughs and squeezes his arm in understanding.

“You look like you just got your breath punched out of you, Dai,” she says.

Daichi leans back on the counter, heavily. At this point he’s not sure his legs will carry him for much longer. Still he bites his lip not to give away his smile.

“That’s exactly what happened, ma. That’s exactly what happened.”

 

 

*

 

His father can’t stay. The friends that watched the stand for him call and list all the new orders, all the new sells they managed to make and added to those of the past week they pile up. Too much for dad to delay, especially considering he’s alone in the run of his activity.

He looks at Suga and Suga understands. He kind of has to.

At 6:30 sharp they are at the station, Suga holding his third coffee of the day in one hand and nana with tears already in her eyes. She clings on to Suga’s shirt as they wait for the train to arrive and hides sniffles behind weak coughs that have an uptight lady standing near her staring in disapproval.

“We’ll see each other in a couple of months, nana,” Suga tries to tell her but even to his own ears it’s a weak argument. Two months seem eternal to him too, but while he’s working on memorizing his thesis he really doesn’t want to plan a trip. And apparently he’s ‘boring as an Orson Welles movie’ during exams week, to quote Tooru, he doesn’t want his family to be subjected to his moods as well.

He doesn’t want to waste his visit on books.

So two months it is.

Suga takes nana’s hand in his and squeezes it. “Are you going to be ok?”

He means for the travel. She’s always loathed having to take the train.

But “Yes, of course,” she says and at his skeptical look she adds “I’ll console myself with the memory of your face yesterday night.”

She mimics the unflattering look of surprise he’d made at the sight of her, eyes wide and round and jaw slack with shock, because really if Ayame had it right yesterday, if he really is ‘’secretly evil’’ he took it all after her.

“I didn’t look like that!” he argues.

She pretends not to hear him. “Besides,” she continues, “I couldn’t exactly ask Daichi-kun to drive me back home.”

“He offered to, several times in fact, but he’s already done so much…”

Her voice fades away to a whisper in the background as the thought of last night, the thought of Daichi fills Suga’s mind. In the frenzy of this morning and the bitterness of goodbye, plus general post birthday blues, Suga hadn’t trusted himself to do more than pinch his arm and make sure it had been all real.

_It’s alright, Suga. It’s alright._

But even as he never focused on it, in the back of his mind it’s been ever present since he woke up. Daichi’s hands on the small of his back, pulling him impossibly close and touching him, skin on skin, nothing between them. Daichi’s lips, chapped, insistent but gentle on his own, tender on his cheek. Daichi’s body against his, his arms around his waist. Daichi Daichi Daichi.

“Yeah, he…he definitely did enough.”

Suga’s voice comes uncertain, hoarse and throaty. Out of breath like he feels.

His nana throws a look behind her, to where dad is standing, meters away from them and talking to two tall men in uniform, and smirks. She gestures for Suga to come closer, kneel down so she can tell him and him alone. “I sure hope you planted a good one on that man, Koushi.”

Suga nearly spits his coffee all over the concrete floor of the platform. “N-nana!”

“What, like you didn’t run back inside to do just that last night as we were leaving…”

“Oh God.”

Everybody knows. He’d been hoping at least his nana would miss the hazy look in his eyes, the suspicious soreness of his lips but nope. After Tooru’s sport bar whistles and Hajime’s wink, Taka’s silent chuckle and his father acting oblivious, now this.

Nana is wagging her eyebrows at him. Suga is ready to crawl under a rock and wither.

“If only I were fifty years younger…oh, I would have wasted no time getting on that body.”

Ok, Suga lied earlier. Now he’s really ready to crawl under a rock and never ever come out until humanity as a whole has gone extinct.

Except…except if he did he’d never have a chance to kiss Daichi again.

No that can’t happen. He needs to be strong, be strong and endure.

He straightens once again and fixes his stare straight ahead. He brushes his bangs away from his face. “I thought you wouldn’t approve, considering that…”

That Daichi is a father. That he’s been married, that he’s older. That technically, shit, technically he’s still Suga’s employer.

_Oh, God…_

All laid out like that, one by one, each and every one of these things seems huge, an impossible obstacle to a relationship that should be doomed from the start. On paper at least.

But when Suga _is_ with Daichi…

It’s the most natural thing in the world. It’s easy even when it’s really fucking hard.

“Well, I ain’t saying it’s easy, love,” his nana says, she calls his name and when he looks down at her Suga finds that she’s smiling, warm and open, completely honest. “It’s not gonna be, but I spent a whole day with that man, hours alone but for your father as company and…and I saw how hard he worked to make sure the night was perfect.”

“For you, baby. He did it all for you. And that, to me, is proof enough.”

Suga nods at her words, he doesn’t trust himself right now to say exactly what he wants to, how much it means to him that nana thinks of it – of them – this way. He nods and rests his cheek on her shoulder, smiles at the kiss she presses on his temple.

His father finds them like this when he comes back, he tells them two guards offered to help nana get on the train safely and make sure no one took her seat and he doesn’t ask the reason for their silence.

He asks nothing at all. Suga suspects it’s because he doesn’t need to.

The train arrives perfectly on time. It’s one from the newest line, high speed and comfy seats it makes quite the picture on the rails, nana very nearly sneers at it. She is so not impressed.

The security guards insist she boards first, so the crowd won’t bother her and before they lift her up by the wheels of her chair she pulls Suga into a tight hug and kisses him tenderly on the forehead.

“Taka care, dear,” she says and she disappears inside.

But Suga’s father lingers. Staring anxiously at the clock above the platform he waits for more people to board as well, then he turns to Suga and hands him a package wrapped in shiny red paper.

For a moment Suga thinks it’s another present. It’s like his father, making him something with his own hands and then buying something smaller in addition, he never feels like his work is enough of a gift, but the almost somber expression with which he’s regarding Suga makes him rethink it.

A present wouldn’t be enough to make his father this nervous.

In fact there is only one thing – one subject – capable of it, capable of making his father lose his composure.

Suga unwraps the package with trembling fingers and when he sees what’s inside he draws in a sharp breath. He was expecting it, in a way he was the one who requested it, but it’s still a shock seeing it in his own hands.

A photo album. Old, with a simple fabric cover in claret and gold. Its edges and spine are worn-out.

His father must have looked at it often.

Suga opens it and the first picture he finds nearly causes his knees to buckle. In pastel colors and white upon white is his mother, half sitting in a hospital bed with him in her arms. He must be no more than a few hours old here, ugly and wrinkly the way all newborn babies are, but his mother is looking at him like he’s the most wonderful sight in the world.

At the edge of the bed his father is smiling, wider than Suga has ever seen him. He looks so impossibly young, and happy. He looks so, so happy.

“Should I not have given you this?”

Suga looks up at his father now, the father he recognizes, the one who’s weary and heartbroken and grey, and shakes his head. “No.”

He hugs the album to his chest. “No, I…I asked.”

His father nods and as the speaker asks all passengers to board he makes to turn toward the train doors.

Suga stops him with a hand on his shoulder and hugs him one last time. “Thank you,” he says. He hopes his father understands just how much he means it.

“Don’t even say it, Koushi.”

A kiss on his hair and his father steps inside. The doors close just moments after and through the line of windows Suga watches him make his way to nana.

Together they wave at him, his nana with a clean white handkerchief, the way people used to do at the beginning of last century when their ship started sailing.

Suga laughs at her antics and waves back with the hand that’s not clinging on to the album. He watches the train leave his line of sight and take them away and, with a heaviness in his chest, he realizes he already misses them.

 

Once home he hides the album in his desk drawer, under a pile of documents and old school assignments.  He’s not ready to look at it quite yet. Not so soon after he finally found some sort of peace of mind, some comfort in knowing and realizing his luck.

After he finally found a little happiness.

He locks the drawer, for good measure, and lets himself fall back on the bed.

The chaos that was yesterday, the dancing, the gifts, the emotions – too many emotion than he can list, too nebulous to name – hits him all at once, all of a sudden. Until all that lingers is the knowledge of what Daichi’s lips feel like on his.

Sleep finds him then with an almost unnoticeable smile on his face.

 

 

*

 

Daichi wakes to the thought of Suga and it stays with him, fixed in every corner of his brain, throughout the entire day. He makes breakfast and he thinks about Suga. He showers and he’s thinking about Suga. He walks the kids to school and as he’s dropping them off the memory of Suga’s fingers in his hair nearly causes him to walk into the school gate.

The kids throw curious looks his way but they never ask. Ayame because she’s really not that interested in why her father is acting weird, and Kaede…Daichi needs to have a talk with him sooner rather than later, to try and figure out just how much this kid knows because the smirk he’s wearing while Daichi and Ayame are waving him goodbye is a little too smug, a little too pleased.

But it’s still nothing compared to that Tanaka and Nishinoya give Daichi when steps foot into the office. For a moment Daichi is tempted to turn on his heels and run.

“Noyassan, look who’s here!”

“Ohhh, could it be…?”

_Ignore them, Daichi. Just ignore them._

“Hey, Casanova, how’s life treating you today?”

“I bet life is treating him real fucking good, Ryuu!”

_Ignore them ignore them ignore them…_

Daichi takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders and makes his way to the elevator in too quick steps to result casual and collected. The back of his neck is burning, but when he looks at his reflection in the gleaming metal of the elevator button he sees the stupidest smile stamped on his face.

Oh, for crying out loud.

Did Suga’s lips suck the last of his rationality and dignity from him, as they were his bottom lip, last night?

“Ryuu, are you seeing the look on his face?”

“I am seeing it, Noyassan, that’s one satisfied look right there…”

“Shut up, you two,” Daichi tells them but it lacks heat, it lacks meaning. He’s smiling too damn hard to mean it.

Suga kissed him last night, not once but countless times, for minutes that could have turned to hours if it hadn’t been for the people who were waiting for him. Suga had kissed him, and told him…

_“You did.”_

You made me happy.

_“You do.”_

Every day.

Even though before yesterday they never…he still managed to make Suga happy. And that’s all he wants, that’s all he wants to do.

So no, he doesn’t mean it, that ‘shut up’. He steps into the elevator and waves at Tanaka and Nishinoya, he keeps that dumb smile on his face. It’s there for a good reason after all.

When he sits alone, in the quiet of the office, away from Ennoshita’s amused stare, – amused and knowing, seriously why does everybody just _know_ about this – he pushes the new files away so their edges align with that of his desk, leans back on his armchair and thinks about Suga.

About his eyes, about his moles. About the smile he’d given him before leaving, and about his warm breath breaking on Daichi’s lips.

Daichi thinks about the kisses they’d shared, unhurried and lingering, melting into one another because their mouths couldn’t seem to stand to be apart for too long, and thumbs at letters on the screen.

He composes a text, then another.

‘I can’t stop thinking about you.’

‘I’m supposed to work here but I can’t find it in myself to concentrate.’

‘I think you broke me…’

And the last, ‘I can’t wait to kiss you again’.

He deletes them all. He doesn’t save them, nor does he call. He’ll say all of this in person, to Suga, when he’s finally close enough to kiss him again. And again and again and again, till their lips are sore and burning and their breaths have turned to pants.

It’s only a few hours, after all. Ten. Ten hours until he can kiss Suga once more.

Daichi checks the clock, watches the seconds slowly become a minute, one single minute, and his stomach drops. Six-hundred more of this, six-hundred more till he’s free to run home, take Suga in his arms and see if his lips are really as soft as Daichi remembers them. If his touch is still that gentle in the morning light.

Fuck. How is Daichi supposed to wait ten more hours for this?

 

 

*

 

On his way to Kaede’s school Suga takes a detour and walks by Mrs. Devaux’s shop.

They haven’t seen each other since that day last week, when Suga had refused to put a sock in it and asked her about her family.

_I have no one…_

She had said goodbye the same way she always does, with that same gentle smile and a soft touch in the crook of his arm, but the silence she had immersed herself in before had still been heavy, foreboding almost.

Suga wants to see her as much as he dreads to, and the fact that she wasn’t at the party yesterday only intensifies - exacerbates? - this want. He’d missed her, her and her calming if sometimes unsettling presence, he wants to apologize if she’ll let him. He wants to tell her about last night.

Most of all, as selfish as this sounds, he wants to tell her about last night.

She’s the only person Suga – more or less – told about his feelings for Daichi, she’s the only one who would really understand just how much _that_ moment meant to him.

She was the first person who gave Suga the hope that Daichi might…might feel the same way.

And Suga wants to talk to her. In a way he almost feels like he has to.

But walking to her shop he finds it closed. Lights off and dark, the display outside is empty and vases are all placed carefully on the floors inside. The dark green canopy roof is drawn back.

It’s Tuesday though, Mrs. Devaux always opens on Tuesdays.

Suga cups his hands around his eyes to cover from the reflection of the sun on the window glass and spies inside, looks toward the counter to see any sign of activity. Nothing. The counter is clean, like it never is, like it shouldn’t be, no stems or old petals scattered upon, and the door that gives to the backroom is locked.

What…?

For a moment panic takes a hold on him. His stomach ties itself in harsh knots. She left, is all his brain supplies, she left without saying anything, without saying goodbye. Just like…

Suga steps back and looks around, down the street, on both sides, up at the tall building. He’s not sure why, what he expects to find. There is nothing, except for passersby looking at him weird.

Then out from the building of the shop comes a large man with squinty eyes and wearing a dirty apron at the waist. His arms are the size of Suga’s head. He waves Suga over with a wide, calloused hand and asks him if his name is Koushi.

Suga is so surprised he can’t even utter a simple ‘yes’. He nods instead.

The man tells him to wait a second, gets inside the building again, then returns with a vase of flowers in his arms.

“Celeste asked me to give them to you, in case I saw you,” he says and his voice is scratchy like sandpaper but gentler than Suga would have guessed. He delicately places the vase in Suga’s arms and so close the petals of the flowers tickle Suga’s chin.

Forget-me-nots.

Blue and purple forget-me-nots in a pale yellow vase.

Between the stems a little card that says ‘’Joyeux anniversaire, mon coeur.”

And Suga would smile if his dread hadn’t taken form – ugly, dark and pulsing - and started weighing his insides down. She can’t be gone. Logically, why would she be gone? Why would she leave her beloved shop behind, why would she…

Why would she leave without telling him?

It makes no sense. But this, this feels so much like an end of some sort.

Forget-me-nots, some of his favourite flowers, sure, but did he ever tell Mrs. Devaux that?

“Where is she…? I mean, why is the shop closed?”

He asks the man in front of him and he’s not lucid enough to hide his apprehension, the trembling in his voice.

The man blinks at him, he catches just how on edge he is even if he doesn’t understand why, and attempts a reassuring smile. “She’s at a fair of some sort, that’s what she told me. She took her best roses with her too, so there might be some flower competition involved…”

“I think she told me the name of it but now I can’t remember.”

“And do you know when she’ll be back?”

“She said next week, between Monday or Tuesday.”

Next week, between Monday and Tuesday.

She didn’t leave. She is not gone.

Suga hugs the vase of flowers to his chest and sighs with a relief that comes from deep within. Deeper than he would have thought.

He thanks the man and bows so deep he nearly topples over with the added weight of the pot. Doesn’t matter. He’ll come back next week, earlier in the morning, and he’ll really apologize. He will apologize for his questions, for having upset Mrs. Devaux the other day, and silently he’ll apologize too for comparing her to someone she has no business being compared to.

_She_ didn’t leave, she won’t.

A part of Suga starts at how relieved he feels, a part of him worries over it too.

 

Kaede asks about the flowers as soon as he sees them and when Suga tells him who they’re from his expression drops, changes into something weird, almost panicked. No question, no plea, not even the promise of buying him mochi makes Kaede cave and admit to Suga what’s wrong but thankfully with Ayame’s arrival comes the answer.

She nods to her brother, a clear ‘go on, say it’ and it explodes on the walls of the living room, such is the strength with which Kaede declares it.

They got him another present.

The party, the hand-made pin Suga is wearing, the drawing he wasted no time framing and hanging above his desk, apparently they were not enough for them. Because there is more.

Ayame runs behind Kaede up the stairs and a couple of minutes later they both come down carrying a beautiful plant of frangipani in a simple earthenware pot.

“We totally forgot yesterday,” Ayame huffs and Suga hurries to help put the plant safely on the floor. “With the dancing and all those people but we got this from Mrs. Devaux’s shop, like, over a week ago.”

“Yeah, it was in my room ‘cuz daddy would have killed it for sure. And Aya too.”

“I would have _not_!”

They go back and forth – “Yes you would!” “No I wouldn’t!” – for a minute or so but Suga makes no attempt to bring peace. He sits on the floor and thumbs at the petals of the nearest flower, levels the earth in the pot, takes in the glossy green of the leaves.

“It’s so beautiful…” he whispers and that alone is enough to make silence fall around him. He looks into his children’s eyes and smiles. “Thank you so much.”

Ayame blushes, just a touch of pink on her cheeks, and Kaede looks down at the floor, kicks at the hardwood panels like he’s not sure what he should do with himself.

Suga saves him the time to figure it out and takes both him and Ayame in his arms.

“Thank you, thank you…”

“You said…you said it was your favourite flower, that one time in the garden…”

Suga can’t believe they remembered such a small thing, such a small detail. “It is, it’s perfect.”

He kisses their brows and they melt in his arms. Under their full weight Suga falls on his ass on the floor and takes the kids with him, and now they are yelping and giggling on his chest, in the crook of his neck.

He waits for them to stop completely, then he squeezes them tight. “I love you,” he says.

He’s said it before, he knows, but somehow today it feels like the first time. It always feels like the first time, he says it thinking ‘that’s it, I could never love them any more than I do now’ and every time he’s proved wrong. Every day he wakes, he walks them home from school, spends the afternoon – the entire afternoon, hours and hours - with them and every day they surprise him.

For how much they’ve grown since he first met them, how much they grow every moment of every day. For how caring they are, and protective of one another, how sweet and funny and so full of love, so full of laughter.

Every single day they surprise him, and every single day Suga surprises himself for the love he’s capable of feeling. Admitting, giving. Before now, before these two – and Daichi – came along, he’d only ever said that to his father, to his nana, to Tooru when he was feeling chummy. And to Tooru it had taken him years to admit.

Now it pours from his lips like it’s the easiest thing in the world, like he’s been saying it for years, like he’s been feeling it for years.

“I love you so much.”

He says it again.

Kaede beams at him, his cheeks a bright cherry red, and clings even tighter, even harder onto the fabric of Suga’s shirt.

Ayame rests her cheek on Suga’s chest. Face tilted upwards her eyes never leave Suga’s. She says “I love you too, Suga-san.”

Suga knows.

“Can we plant the frangipani here?” she asks after a while, still in a whisper. “I mean, I know it’s a present for you but…”

It’s one more way to keep him here. Because even when he’s not, in truth, somehow, he never really leaves. “Yes.”

“Yes, we can plant it here.”

But cuddled as they are, close on the warming floors, it takes them a long while to find the will to stand up.

 

 

*

 

Daichi flies home.

As soon as his last meeting of the day comes to an end he collects some files to read later in bed, waves goodbye to Ennoshita and rushes out of his office before anyone can pile up more urgent documents on his desk.

Not today, Satan. Not today.

Today he’s got things to do. Well, one. He’s got one thing to do, the only thing he’s been able to think about all day.

He ignores the obnoxious whistles his so-called friends aim his way and starts a march to his house that has him nearly running over an old man with a cane and a dog that looks even older than he is. He throws what he hopes is a hearty apology behind his shoulders and speeds up his pace even more.

Through the small playground he saves some time, precious seconds gained that he will use to kiss Suga longer – longer and deeper, more thorough than he did yesterday, - and he walks past Kinoshita-san’s garden, something he never does. Punctual like clockwork that damn dog starts to bark. For once Daichi ignores it and proceeds in ample strides.

Through his gate and past the garden. Up the patio steps and into the house he throws his briefcase on the sofa, loosens his tie and brushes off his jacket.

He’s home. Ten hours have passed, almost eighteen since Suga wished him goodnight through sore, red lips and now Daichi is home, only a few steps away from him.

Voices come from the backyard, that is still bright in fairy lights, and Daichi follows them. Silent he watches Suga dig a shallow hole in the ground and brush his hair away from his face with dirty hands. There are spots of black earth on his cheek, several, he must have done this many times before.

Daichi’s fingers itch with the need to thumb the dirt away.

“Do you like it here?” Suga is asking, to the kids who are busy pretending to collect the fallen leaves.

The frangi-whatever plant is sitting near them, its simple, glossy white flowers seem to almost sparkle in the dawning light of evening. The same way Suga’s hair is.

The kids answer with a simple ‘yes’ and Daichi decides now is as good a time as any to make his presence known. “And good afternoon to you too,” he calls, he jokes.

The kids run to him and stain his suit green and brown. Suga looks from the ground up and when their eyes meet, all the way across the backyard garden, his are already burning with an emotion Daichi too feels inside his chest, just as deep, just as addictive.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” Daichi echoes, and he walks to him in small, uncertain steps. Controlled, for now, to fight off the knee-jerk instinct that is all but screaming at him to take Suga fast in his arms.

Only for now, only for as long as the children are here.

He asks “Can I help?” to keep his hands, his body and mind busy, concentrated on something that is not the tempting shape of Suga’s cupid’s bow. Suga nods and so Daichi kneels in the dirt, right before him.

How fitting.

 

Earth flies, thrown everywhere but on the ground, and through endless laughter Suga runs to hide behind Daichi’s back.

“Hey, don’t use me as your shiel- AYAME!”

It started the way it always does: an innocent accident. Kaede was collecting soil to fill the hole with, so that the frangipani could stand on its own, and inadvertently got some on the sleeve of Ayame’s shirt.

To be fair his apology had been on the verge of half-assed and it certainly was unfeeling but Daichi still doesn’t see how that could justify the fact that he’s now covered in fucking dirt. With a giggling Suga all but draped on his back, warm and shaking and lovely.

Ok, so maybe this is not all bad.

That unruly lock of hair that always sticks up at the centre of his head is tickling Daichi’s nape. Maybe, there is a slight chance Daichi might consider this to be kind of nice.

Except the dirt part, that is. That’s still gross. Some of it even got in his mouth.

He sputters and spits in the napkin Suga hands him and fixes his children with what he hopes is a very stern look. “Stop that now,” is all he says and the earth Kaede had just now collected in his hand falls to the ground with a sad ‘flomp’.

Suga snorts. His shoulders are still shaking with badly repressed laughter but when Daichi glares at him too he pinches the bridge of his nose and offers an apology in the form of a eye-roll.

‘’You are lucky you are pretty,’’ Daichi wants to tell him but a compliment like that poorly masked as a – pointless – threat would only make Suga laugh harder.

“Just keep digging,” he grumbles instead.

“We have stopped digging, _Sawamura_ - _san_. Now we need to actually plant the frangipani.”

Pretty. So, so fucking pretty and so, so fucking annoying.

Annoyingly pretty, that’s what Suga is.

“Then just…just plant the damn thing!”

Daichi pushes his shoulder and not to topple on the ground Suga has to cling on his arm. He’s still laughing. “Oh Daichi, come on! I was joking!”

Then, after a brief pause. “Now pass me that trowel.”

He’s still ordering him around.

Daichi hates that he’s so, so hopelessly in love with this man.

Except…except not really. Because after he hands it to him Suga places the trowel on the ground by his side, takes another clean napkin from the pocket of his trousers and starts wiping Daichi’s cheek. With unbearable gentleness.

Daichi stands still, rooted on the spot and barely even breathing. He looks at Suga’s reddening cheeks, starts at the touch of his thumb on his cheekbone. Then, just as it began it’s over, because before them there are still their children and they can’t give themselves away quite yet.

Not so soon, not when everything is still so new, and tentative.

Suga clears his throat and moves away from him. In quick, nervous gestures he balls up the napkin and with a new one he attempts to clean the sleeve of Ayame’s shirt.

“I’m afraid that’s the best I can do…”

“It’s alright, Suga-san, I’ll put it in the washing machine later.”

As in, Daichi will put it in the washing machine later.

“You mean you don’t want me to try spitting on it?”

“Ew, no, Suga-san!”

“Yes, Suga-san! Please!”

“I was joking, Kaede. Now behave.”

It’s amazing how quick Suga manages to take control of a situation sometimes. Daichi is sure he’s the only one who noticed the subtle shaking in his voice, caused by the fear that maybe, maybe he went a little too far a little too soon.

 

The earth falls in the hole, back into the earth where it’s supposed to, and all together the four of them huddle close to push more soil around the slim trunk of the frangipani. They keep at it till it doesn’t stagger anymore.

Suga pinches the back of Kaede’s hand when he catches him trying to get his sister’s clothes dirty again but other than that there are no more incidents.

Ayame finds a ladybug hidden between two glossy leaves and makes it run up her arm through chuckles and coos.

“I think it likes you, Aya-chan,” Suga says after minutes of it chasing after Ayame’s finger and she beams both at the consideration and at the nickname.

She moves so Suga can take the little fellow for himself and the ladybug rests for a moment still in Suga’s open palm. Then it takes flight to reach the azaleas near. In the bright pink of their petals it gets lost soon.

“As long as he stays here…” Ayame says with a small pout on her face.

“He’s going to have a blast here. Look at all the flowers he can pick from now!”

“Yeah, if he’d come here a couple of months ago he would have had to choose between broken chairs or broken coffee tables!”

They all sit back to stare at the frangipani, thin-trunked, that opens into half a dozen thinner branches. It stands steady now and, Daichi has to admit, it’s absolutely beautiful.

Beautiful and simple, elegant with its white flowers that fade into bright yellow at the core.

“It suits you, Suga,” he says before he can think much about it and when three pairs of eyes turn to stare at him – in surprise, in agreement, knowingly – he finds nothing to add that could help him save face.

“I mean, it’s…they are simple, the flowers, and…”

_Don’t say pretty, don’t say pretty, don’t say pretty…_

“It’s true.”

Ayame. His sweet, sweet child interjects before he can dig his own grave.

“Uh-uh, we said the same thing too.” Kaede adds his own, but he does so with an all too amused glint in his eyes.

How is it possible for a four years old to be this damn perceptive. Who the hell did he take after? At his age Daichi couldn’t even tell his own ass apart.

Suga walks over to the kids and puts both arms around Ayame’s neck. “Thank you, dear,” he says and kisses her cheek. Then he does the same with Kaede.

“You don’t wanna thank daddy too? He paid for the plant, you know?”

_Oh my God, Kaede…_

Suga freezes and Daichi with him. A quick, ‘’manly’’ pat on the shoulder and an awkward ‘thank you’ the most they trust themselves with.

Ayame looks from Daichi to Suga, as if they are engaging in a tennis match, and shakes her head in near exasperation. “I will never understand boys,” she concludes, matter-of-factly.

Kaede is sulking, more than a little disappointed.

 

Suga talks of a rose that needs to be replanted and immediately the kids get out of it.

“Suga-san I love you but when it’s too much it’s too much,” are Ayame’s wise words and soon she and Kaede are competing over who can reach higher on the swings.

Suga lets them go without protesting, a simple nod in understanding and nothing more.

Easy. Much too easy.

And it becomes immediately clear why.

“You are going to help me, aren’t you, Daichi?” Suga asks. The look he’s regarding Daichi with has a pleasant shiver run down his spine.

Suga circles his wrist with a hand – warm palm and cold fingertips – and slowly they make their way to a small bush of red roses. On the opposite side of the backyard from where the swing set is, they are almost completely hidden from sight by the girder of the patio.

That works just fine for Daichi. From the other side of the backyard the kids can’t see his thumb caress the back of Suga’s hand.

“This rose doesn’t really need replanting, doesn’t it?”

“Absolutely not.”

They can’t see the way Suga is smiling at him, a little crooked, and shy. Unspeakably sexy.

Their hands meet in the earth, around the thin trunk of the rose and as they pretend to move the earth around they keep chasing each other without pause. Daichi catches Suga’s fingertips – thin and lovely, all soiled black – in his and tugs on them to get Suga closer. Suga slaps him playfully on the shoulder for having made him fall on his ass.

They collect soil and their fingers brush, they interlace under it, where the earth is warm and welcoming.

Through thin branches and jagged leaves Daichi looks at the colors swirling in Suga’s eyes, brown that melts into copper that melts into gold, darker by the irises, the way Daichi has never seen the likes of.

“I thought about you all day,” he whispers, and in the corner of Suga’s lips appears a timid dimple.

“I thought about you all night too,” Suga whispers back after a moment and his smile widens to turn into something cheekier.

_Like the changing of the tides…_

Not like the wind, that lacks substance, and is gone for you only to see its effects on the landscape, but like the ocean, that is unchanging even as it never looks the same. Always alive with activity, like Suga’s mind, that moves incessant, faster than everyone else’s, faster than even Suga can follow sometimes. Suga is unpredictable, but the sight of him, knowing that tomorrow he’s still going to be there, is the most comforting feeling Daichi has ever found.

Daichi moves toward him with the excuse to grab the shears and brushes their cheeks together, the time of a heartbeat. “Don’t say things like that,” he almost scolds.

_Don’t say things like that because I already feel like I’m losing my mind…_

So close to him and yet he can’t touch him the way he wants.

Suga turns as Daichi is moving back to his place and his lips graze him, the sensitive skin close to his ear, his cheek. They brush against him, a touch so soft it might not even qualify as such, and heat rises in Daichi’s stomach. It spreads fast in every part of his body, through his veins like thrumming blood it causes him to shiver.

His fingers, his toes, the spot where Suga just touched him tingle as if suddenly asleep.

But he’s never been more awake. More aware of himself, more aware of Suga and of the effects his nearness has on him. The thin shirt he’s wearing, that backlit by the fairy lights gives Daichi the perfect silhouette of his body. The shadow cast by his collarbones and the sensual dip at the base of his neck.

“God, you have no idea how much I wish…”

_To kiss you again. Everywhere. On that secret spot behind your ear, that’s always hidden by your hair. The line of your jaw, and in the centre of your back, between your shoulder blades._

_Along your inner thigh._

Suga’s lips part, as though he’s somehow heard Daichi’s thoughts – maybe, probably they weren’t that hard to guess – and he turns around to check on the kids.

They are still on the swings, laughing maniacally – Ayame – and huffing in annoyance – Kaede – and well out of earshot.

Suga stands on his feet, with almost irritating calmness he dusts off his pants and collects the gardening tools. Just before heading back inside he fixes Daichi with a look that has his temperature spike a hundred degrees. “Me too,” he says, that’s it, and leaves Daichi there, kneeling on the ground and gaping at the way those ratty sweatpants hug his ass.

 

“See you tomorrow.”

The kids nod at Suga and wrap their arms tight around his waist.

“I wish you could stay like the flower,” Kaede mutters in Suga’s stomach but lets him go all the same. Unwillingly and with a crease between his brows but he lets Suga go.

Suga makes a show of widening his eyes, comically unblinking. “You want to stick me in the ground, Kaede-kun? I thought you liked me?”

And that’s enough to make Kaede crack a smile.

“Sleep well, little cabbages,” he says and Ayame bursts out laughing. Daichi is not really sure why, or what cabbages have to do with anything at all, but whatever. He’s long come to accept the fact that Suga is really fucking weird sometimes.

So he shrugs and springs into motion as soon as the door clicks open.

“I’ll walk you to the gate,” he says, needlessly really, he does it every night.

He closes the door behind them, the children safe inside, and leads the way through the path of pebbles and roses. Suga really transformed this house, in more ways than Daichi can count.

The gate opens, squeaks a little on old hinges, and Suga takes a sudden step away from him.

“Well,” he deadpans, a smile fighting to appear on his lips, “see you tomorrow, Daichi.”

Daichi takes him in his arms before he can finish the sentence, with so much enthusiasm his feet are no longer touching the ground.

 

 

*

 

Suga’s lips still feel sore when he gets to his apartment. Sore and puffy, so warm they are burning.

He leans back on the front door and laughs.

“Well, well, well, someone had a good day today…” Tooru calls from the kitchen. He looks Suga up and down, with that annoying, knowing smirk on his face, and shakes his head.

“So how’s Sawa-chan in bed?”

Suga nearly trips on his own two feet. While standing completely still. “W-we didn’t. Oh my God, Tooru, the kids were there!”

“Alright, alright, but did you at least _smooch_ him some more?”

He drags the ‘o’s in ‘smooch’ obnoxiously long, he even goes as far as to make kissy faces at him.

Suga throws his bag on the couch and starts a mad dash to his room. He will not be subjected to this humiliation, not today, not now that his heart is still recovering from Daichi’s kisses.

“I take from the way you are blushing that you did smooch him more. Good job Koushi!”

“Shut up!”

So close to his bedroom door, so close. If only Tooru weren’t holding on the back of his shirt…

“Now that you two are a thing my present will be much more well received, I think.”

Tooru keeps talking, even as Suga’s bedroom door gets slammed open. Then it registers in Suga’s brain. Tooru’s other present, the one that was apparently too inappropriate to give in the presence of children.

Suga stares into Tooru’s eyes, sees them flicker to Suga’s bed.

_Oh God…_

Suga is not so sure he wants to step foot in his room anymore. But as with every other thing that involves Tooru in any way, better deal with it sooner rather than later. Quick and painless, like ripping off a band-aid.

He takes a deep breath and follows the line of Tooru’s gaze.

On his bed, his messy, purple-sheeted bed, lies a cheerleader uniform. A female cheerleader uniform, that features a short – very short - pleated black skirt and a crop top with bright orange edges. The crop top also sports a big, white number one on the front.

The Karasuno colors and Daichi’s jersey number when he still played. There are pom-poms too, in the same colors.

Suga’s mortified screech in that moment resounds throughout the entire campus.


	28. Madly, because you held me tight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heart and soul.

They become stolen moments.

While the kids are watching TV, when they are busy with homework or drawing or playing games with their friends online Suga will throw Daichi a look and suddenly they are fumbling like teenagers in the laundry room.

Breaths mingled and lips joined, they move into each other like opposite ends of a magnet, with the impatience of who has been waiting to do this all day. A few minutes to themselves, that’s all they get.

Sometimes they go slow, still tentative at something that is so new and yet that feels so big, exploring each other’s mouths as if time has stopped running not just in their small, secluded space. Hands clasped tight together or chaste on waist and shoulders. Those are the times Daichi cherishes the most.

But often...often it’s just the rush of knowing that soon someone is going to call them, look around for them and put an end to this bliss. Because that’s what it is, bliss. Even when it’s fast and rushed kisses, caresses that turn into frustrated pulls and bites that serve to stifle moans, having Suga in his arms - finally, like this, - is bliss.

Daichi just wishes...he just wishes they had time.

“You gotta ask him out, Daichi-san,” Tanaka says on a gloomy Thursday, all gathered in the surveillance room with their bentos on their thighs.

“Yeah, Daichi-san, I’m surprised you haven’t done it already!”

Nishinoya and Tanaka stare at him, almost offended by his behaviour and Daichi is possessed, at the same time, by the instinct of cowering in shame and throwing his boiled egg at their dumb faces. Of course he knows he has to ask Suga out, of course he wants to.

That was never the problem.

“Yurika was supposed to take the kids on Wednesday but she was busy with work so she’s coming this weekend. So I was thinking-”

“This weekend! Ask him then, what’s the problem?”

What’s the problem.

The problem is that Daichi hasn’t asked a person out since he first met Yurika. Sure he’s had...other encounters since his divorce was finalized but when he says encounters he means sex and it’s much, much easier to ask people if they want to have a quickie in the bathroom, or on his office desk, in Mai’s case, than it is asking out a person you care about.

And about Mai, they went out once too and look how well that turned out.

“I just...I don’t know, how would I even approach the subject?”

He pokes at his rice but makes no move to eat it. He’s sure he must look like a complete loser to his friends’ eyes, a thirty-three years old man who doesn’t even know how to ask a person out, but this is not just ‘’a person’’ they are talking about. This is Suga.

And that changes everything.

Nishinoya shrugs and takes a huge bite of his meat. Like Daichi suspected, he doesn’t seem to really understand why Daichi is making such a big deal out of this. “Just do it, Daichi-san.”

“I mean, you two have been dancing around each other for months. _For_ _months_. Whatever the way you ask, there is no way Suga-chan is going to say no and that’s all that matters in the end, isn’t it?”

Daichi stares at him. In complete silence until Nishinoya is squirming on his seat.

“Thanks Noya,” he says at last.

Nishinoya beams.

“Thanks for being totally useless.”

Nishinoya does have a point actually, several even. But that’s not the piece of advice Daichi was looking for or needed.

Fuck. He’s really going to have to figure this out on his own.

 

 

*

 

“It’s like I’ve forgotten everything, Tooru. The rules, all my...all my moves, don’t laugh! I have moves, alright? And they’ve always worked!”

Tooru _moves_ the pile of books Suga has been drowning under for the past four hours to make space for his sad, sad tomato salad and through huge bites of it he says “Then I don’t see what the problem is!”

“The problem is...” Suga starts with emphasis, his fingers white around the edge of the kitchen table, then somewhere in between one word and the other his conviction gets lost. “I don’t know.”

He really doesn’t. He has no clue.

He fell into this thing head first, is the truth, when he kissed Daichi all that was speaking to him was his instinct and...as cheesy as this sounds, his heart. Now it’s real, it’s fact what’s between them and Suga knows what comes next technically – dates, sex, couple-like things – but he doesn’t know how to get there without rushing. He doesn’t know how to get there with someone he cares about so much.

It’s never happened before.

A hand squeezes his and Suga finds Tooru staring at him with something akin to sympathy in his eyes. “You are making this out to be more complicated than it is, Koushi.”

The ‘’as usual’’ doesn’t come but it’s implied. The seriousness of the moment short-lived.

“Just bat those big doe eyes at him and you’ll have him in the bag.”

Suga takes a tomato out of Tooru’s plate and throws it at his stupid face, earning him a very satisfying screech of horror.

“I knew I should have talked about this with Taka!”

He makes to leave but Tooru stops him with a hand on his arm. He tugs and tugs till Suga is sitting on his lap.

“You’re a moron,” Suga feels obliged to comment but he settles on his new perching spot all the same.

“And you’re being ridiculous.”

Tooru traps him in his arms. “I understand why you are being ridiculous but as your friend I have to tell you: stop getting so damn lost in your head all the time.”

As if it’s something Suga can control. As if he hasn’t tried time and time again to just chill, take life one step at the time without constantly worrying about the ifs and maybes of the future.

“I don’t know how to do that, Tooru.”

Tooru hooks his chin in Suga’s shoulder. “Ok then don’t, but at least try listening to your guts instead once in a while.”

“When the time is right they’ll tell you.”

“My _guts_ will tell me?”

“Yep, now get off me. After a while you start getting heavy.”

Suga stands and watches Tooru leave for practice in silence.

When the time is right.

 

Daichi comes home at 19:30 sharp.

At 19:42 Suga announces he’s forgotten to get the clothes out of the washing machine and asks Daichi to please help him collect them all and put them in the dryer, so one more thing is done before he has to leave.

“You’ve been doing laundry a lot more often, Suga-san,” Ayame says from behind the manga she’s reading. No hints, no implications or knowing glances, just a consideration.

Suga clears his throat and answers with a simple hum. He waits for Ayame to say something more but she doesn’t, she simply turns a page and slides down the sofa so she’s resting her cheek on the armrest.

Barely stifling a sigh of relief Suga turns on his heels and leads the way to the laundry room, in far too quick steps. The door has only just clicked closed that Daichi’s hands are already tight on his waist, his lips are already searching for Suga’s.

Suga laughs, breathless against Daichi’s skin, and complies. He tilts his chin up, still smiling, shivering in anticipation, and just like that…just like that they are kissing.

Finally they are kissing. Twenty-four hours since their last, since their last kiss, since their last touch and Suga knows that if he’d had to wait just one more second he would have lost his bloody mind.

He wraps his arms around Daichi and together they move till they are leaning heavy on the wall, on the washing machine that’s still vibrating and making noise. Their teeth clink together, because stupidly neither of them can seem to stop smiling, and Suga takes advantage of the moment to playfully bite at the tip of Daichi’s nose.

“W-what are you doing?” Daichi asks, breathless on Suga’s lips.

Suga doesn’t bother answering him. His attention shifts down, just a little lower, and he gives Daichi a quick peck. Then another, and one more. He continues, no real substance, only teasing, till Daichi loses his patience and with a poorly repressed growl chases Suga’s lips.

And time stops running.

“What took you so long?” Suga pants between one kiss and the other. His lips are tingling, under his collar his skin is on fire.

Daichi raises a hand from his waist and brushes his bangs away, tucks them behind his ear with unexpected calmness, then shifts again to trace Suga’s bottom lip with his thumb. “I got caught up at work,” he says in a whisper, in a tone that shakes and breaks with arousal. “But I’m tendering my resignation tomorrow.”

Suga kisses the tip of his thumb, he nibbles at it until he hears Daichi’s breath falter. “You’ll quit your job?”

“Mmm. I’ll quit so I can…I can finally spend all my days in bed with you.”

His thumb moves down, under Suga’s chin and lifts it up just right. They kiss again, they kiss until Suga is too shaken by laughter to continue.

“You’ll spend all your days in bed with me, uh? You haven’t even taken me to bed yet, Sawamura-san.”

Daichi stiffens in his arms, he blushes, pressed so close to him Suga can feel the heat of it. He watches Daichi sputter, scratch the back of his neck in nerves and before the poor man can work himself into a frenzy he kisses him again.

“It’s alright,” he says, licks into Daichi’s mouth.

“It was a nice plan.”

And then he stops. Because what moment could be better than this, alone together, so close every breath they take in is shared.

He rests his forehead on Daichi’s and his hands start a slow journey up the arms wrapped tightly around him. “Listen, Daichi. I was…I was thinking…” he starts and it’s promising.

“I was thinking that maybe we could-”

“Suga-san! Daddy! How long does it take to get two shirts in a dryer?!”

Ayame’s voice comes terrifyingly close. Daichi and Suga jump apart, with so much promptness Suga nearly trips on an empty basket on the floor. It’s only Daichi’s hands on his waist again that save him from a nasty fall to the ground.

“Wha- Suga-san, are you alright?” Ayame opens the door to the laundry room and immediately hurries by his side. She helps him straighten with a hand on his back and suddenly Suga is hit by guilt for what he’s doing. What he had been doing just few moments ago.

He doesn’t like the lies he has to tell to spend some time with Daichi, he doesn’t like that he has to tell them to his kids. But he can’t…it’s too soon to come clean with this.

It’s too soon to tell them about this.

He and Daichi haven’t even gone on an official date yet.

A date.

Suga sighs and thanks Ayame, he walks out of the laundry room with only a fleeting glance at Daichi, who looks gorgeous and ruffled, so impossibly sexy with his hair messy and tie almost completely askew.

His guts would let him know when the time was right, uh?

Screw Tooru and his half-assed Hershey kiss phrases, to be honest. It seems like Suga’s guts are even more unreliable than his overactive brain.

 

 

*

 

“So, did you do it?”

Nishinoya and Tanaka ask in unison as soon as Daichi steps foot in the office.

One exasperated look thrown their way and their shoulders drop.

“Don’t mind, Daichi-san, it’s not like there’s a time limit to these things!”

“Yeah, just go with the flow!”

Daichi presses the button of his floor with so much force it nearly stays in. He attempts a wave and watches the elevator doors close. He appreciates the support but fuck he’s feeling like the biggest of idiots right now.

He had one thing to do, _one_ , and he couldn’t. He couldn’t find the time, he couldn’t find the words. Truth is, when he’s near Suga now all words seem to fly out of his brain. There is just…so much he wants to touch, so many different spots on Suga’s body he wants to learn about, if they are ticklish, if they are sensitive, so many things he wants to do with Suga that…that in the few moments they have for themselves talking is the very last thing on his mind.

The phone beeps in his pocket. A new message. Daichi doesn’t even check the sender, Suga has this way of…of reaching out when Daichi most needs him, it’s like he senses it when Daichi’s thoughts linger on him.

Or maybe it’s just a shot in the dark and the reason why it always feels like uncanny timing is that, well, Daichi thinks about him a little too much.

‘have fun at work,’ the message says.

The little shit. As if Daichi could ever have fun watching people fight over horrifying clay pots and glass coffee tables, argue over each yen and insult the other’s family all the way up to their greatest ancestors.

Still, unbidden, a smile finds place on his lips.

And it only turns wider as another text arrives. No words, they are not needed now, just an emoji making a kissy face.

Daichi steps on his floor, to start another never-ending, pointless day of work, and types a quick ‘can’t wait’ in reply. He can’t indeed, in his mind he’s already counting the hours.

 

 

*

 

Suga is tired. No, scratch that. A little kid who got seven hours of sleep instead of his usual eight is tired. A telemarketer who got hung up on thirteen times in an hour is tired.

Suga…Suga is exhausted.

He spent all night yesterday studying, all night reading and revising his thesis and banging his head on the desk in frustration, and just when he’d finally come to accept the fact that, at 4:30 in the morning, his brain simply would not let him absorb even one more notion World War III started. Right in the bedroom next to his.

Honestly now, he should have known.

As soon as he and Hajime had locked eyes in the kitchen, he should have known. But he’d allowed himself to be hopeful for once, things are just going so well for him now apparently he finally got those rose-tinted glasses Edith Piaf used to talk about.

Curled on his bed with his pillow on his head to try to muffle all sounds he’d still managed to catch the gist of it. Him and, he suspects, the entire student population of Meiji.

Hajime had come to get his things. Again, the empty box in his arms should have given Suga some sort of clue but we’ve already established Suga was not at his most perceptive in that moment.

Anyway, Hajime had come to get his things. At five in the morning because that’s the only time on Friday he and Tooru are home at the same time. And Tooru…in few words, Tooru had refused to give in.

He’d started an argument over each and every item Hajime picked up. “We got this together, it’s half mine too,” “I love this shirt, why do you need it? It doesn’t even fit you anymore!” “These come in a set! There is no point in having only one!”.

Hajime, for his part, had risen to the bait for each and every one. Tooru had been doing it just to get to spend more time with him, hoping for an argument that would make Hajime stay, and Hajime had proved just how not over this all is for him.

In the end, though, in the end he’d still left.

The last thing Suga had heard, well past 7 am, was “Please, don’t,” whispered by Tooru just outside his bedroom door. Then the front door had fallen closed.

Ever since he hasn’t slept a blink.

As soon as Hajime left he and Taka left their bedrooms and the pretense of sleep and huddled close to Tooru, nearly swaddled him in blankets. Tooru didn’t cry, Tooru never does, but by nine he was still in his pajamas. He didn’t even mention going to class.

Suga texted a guy who follows Tooru’s course and asked him to bring his notes when he can, otherwise he never left the sofa where Tooru’s lying, watching old volleyball matches in complete silence. In fact all morning he did nothing but card his fingers through Tooru’s hair.

Now Tooru’s gone, off to practice and then straight to the court where the match with Chuo will be held tonight and Suga is so tired – exhausted, he’s exhausted – he feels like falling asleep while standing.

But he can’t. No. He only has forty-five minutes before he needs to leave to pick up Kaede. All he can do in that amount of time is get ready, see: try to look remotely alive, and grab Onyx’s carrier.

Yurika-san is coming later this evening to pick the kids up for the week-end but even three hours feel like too much, too long to keep his composure and his eyes open. So Onyx it is, the best source of entertainment for animal-lovers under the age of 100.

As he’s putting her in the carrier, as delicate as he can be while he’s trying his best not to fall asleep right on the kitchen floor, Onyx regards him with a long look and meows, half reproachful half sympathetic.

She knows what he’s doing, she knows why he’s doing it. She usually doesn’t appreciate being used in such a blatant manner but considering she took off last night (this morning, actually) as soon as the voices began to rise in the next room, leaving Suga alone to his misery, she really is in no position to protest.

So carrier it is. Suga throws a slice of ham between the bars to keep her on his good side and yawning without pause he makes his way outside, where the obnoxious summer sun nearly threatens to blind him.

“Fuck off,” he murmurs under his breath.

It gets no results.

 

“So Chiyo said to him ‘’was that supposed to be a spike? My grandma would have hit that ball harder!’’ and everybody laughed but then the teacher came in and…Suga-san, are you listening to me?”

At the mention of his name Suga forces his eyes open. “Yeah, of course. Yuuta-kun was being smug as per usual in gym class but then when it came to spike the ball he messed up and Chiyo-chan said-”

“Ok, ok, you were listening.”

Ayame pets Onyx on the belly but even as she starts to purr, much to Kaede’s delight, Ayame’s eyes never leave Suga’s. “I thought you’d fallen asleep,” she says, and she doesn’t sound annoyed or upset, she only sounds worried.

Great. Not only is he being of the shittiest company possible, he’s also making the kids worry.

He shifts on the loveseat to sit a little straighter, not so much curled on himself, and rubs his tired eyes, that now give him images of the room blurred at the edges. “I’m sorry, Ayame, I guess I’m more tired than I thought…”

Ayame stands and sits on the armrest of Suga’s loveseat. She looks at him carefully, the state of his clothes, the mess that is his hair, the blue shadows under his eyes, and presses a palm on his forehead. “You’re not getting sick, are you?”

These words are enough to make Kaede’s attention shift, finally away from the cat and on to Suga’s face. “Are you gonna faint again, Suga-san?”

“If you feel sick tell us. Dede learnt from daddy how to make broth, so we can make you some. But maybe we should call daddy first, Dede give me the ph-”

Suga stops her with a hand on her arm and shakes his head at Kaede when he makes to stand and grab Ayame’s phone on the coffee table. “You two are so sweet but that won’t be necessary. I’m not getting sick, I promise, I’m just really, really tired.”

They stare at him for a short while, and it’s only Suga’s smile that reassures them enough to get back to playing with Onyx.

“You can take a nap on my bed if you want,” Ayame tells him while she’s brushing Onyx’s tail with care. Her tone is casual, too casual, Suga knows she’s still concerned.

“Or on mine!” Kaede interjects. “But maybe my bed is too small…”

Suga stands and moves to the couch, presses a kiss on the top of their heads. “Thank you but I can wait for when Yurika-san has arrived.”

“Now finish telling me that story, Ayame. What did the teacher do when he saw you all laughing at poor Yuuta-kun?”

 

Daichi and Yurika-san arrive together, Daichi a little earlier than he usually does, Yurika-san perfectly on time like always but, Suga notices with pleasure, looking much more relaxed than previous times.

She smiles, small but honest, at him and Suga offers to take her light, linen jacket. They ask each other how they are doing, Suga compliments Yurika-san’s new haircut – which causes Daichi to flinch, the oblivious idiot probably hadn’t even noticed – and she in return asks him about his thesis.

“A fascinating subject,” she comments, and in this too Suga finds no lies said out of courtesy. “I never studied French so I’m sure the few translated books I read lost some of their effectiveness but I always found Naturalism interesting…”

When the kids, and Daichi, fake yawns of boredom they roll their eyes but stop nonetheless. Suga has to hide a very real yawn behind his palm but the gesture still attracts Daichi’s eyes. He furrows his brows in a clear question – “Are you alright?” – and Suga shrugs at him, waves his concern off.

He’s just tired, that’s all. Nothing to worry about, nothing that deserves all this attention. Although he has to admit, at least to himself, it’s kind of nice – a lot nice, - seeing just how much they all care. The kids, Daichi.

It’s unnecessary here and now, but it’s still sweet.

While they are all looking around for the last few items the kids need to bring at Yurika-san’s house, Suga moves past Daichi - in the narrow, narrow space between his body and the back of the couch – and drags his index finger down the back of Daichi’s hand. In thank you, maybe, but mostly just because he wanted to.

He walks away in the next moment and smiles to himself at the way Daichi curls and uncurls his hand along his side, eyes fixed steady on anywhere but him.

 

“Where is my other shoe, Suga-san?”

“I swear I put it there!”

“Is my orange skirt still in the dryer?”

“What is this headband doing on the lamp?”

Chaos. For the next fifteen minutes nothing but chaos reigns in this house. And more than ever the sleepless night Suga had makes itself known, weighs heavily on Suga’s limbs, on his eyelids.

He finds the missing shoe under the couch, a yellow skirt that would go just as well as the orange one with the outfit Ayame wants to wear tomorrow, and wins the argument ‘no hat/yes hat’ against a vexed Kaede.

By the time he’s done arguing he’s ready to curl in a ball on the floor and sleep throughout the entire week-end. But just like this morning he can’t quite yet, because Ayame’s charger has mysteriously gone missing.

In five they search for it, they try to reenact Ayame’s afternoon, retrace her steps. Nothing. They search in the most improbable places, nothing. Although they do find one of Suga’s old rainbow bobby pins in an empty jar in the pantry. But that’s not important right now, Suga thinks to himself as he puts the damn thing on. Now they have to find Ayame’s…

_Wait a second._

It’s the smug flicking of her tail that gives her away. A rookie mistake.

Suga approaches Onyx from behind and taps her on the back, ready to ask for explanations that are not going to come. Onyx, the little shit that she is, rolls so her soft, furry belly is showing…along with the end of Ayame’s charger.

“I swear to God, Onyx…”

She even dares protest when he takes it. Quick he throws it to Ayame, who catches it one-handed and nearly drops it on the floor immediately after because she’s laughing a little too hard.

“Miss Onyx, it was you all along!”

“I should have thought of her much earlier.”

Onyx meows at the scowl on Suga’s face and with a long-suffering sigh he caves and welcomes her in his arms. “You furry little ruffian…”

She always pulls these kinds of stunts when she sees people getting ready to leave. Suga is still not sure if it’s because she doesn’t want them to leave her, in which case the whole thing would actually be really sweet, or if she just likes giving people a hard time, in which case she’s just a very cute asshole.

Whatever the case it’s not relevant, because now that the charger has been found it’s really time for the kids to go.

They hoist their bags on their shoulders and stop by the entrance to say their goodbyes. First to Onyx, who presses her nose against their cheeks with insistence and claws the hems of their pants in a last attempt to get them to stay. Then they share a look and together they run in his and Daichi’s arms. They pull them in closer so it’s a tight group hug and stroke their hair as if to console them.

“Be good,” Ayame tells them and everybody laughs but Daichi, who’s too busy sputtering in indignation.

They take the lovely, noisy chaos away with them and as the door falls shut all that’s left is quiet. Suga leans in on Daichi’s side and fills it with hums at the feeling of Daichi’s hand, warm on the small of his back.

It works just enough to make them both find their smiles.

 

“Do you have to go soon?” Daichi whispers in the crook of his neck, after moments where talking went all but forgotten.

“Nah. I’d have to check my agenda to be sure but I don’t think I had special plans for tonight.”

_Except kiss you some more._

Suga shifts in Daichi’s arms and smiles when his movements are greeted with an annoyed meow from Onyx, who, up until seconds ago, was well on her way to falling asleep with her chin on his calf.

“Why do you ask?”

“I was thinking that maybe you could…you could stay a while.” Daichi phrases it almost like a question and Suga has to kiss the uncertainty off his lips, till it turns to confidence and passionate demands, breathless requests for more.

Stay a while. If it all depended on Suga he’d never even think of leaving this couch.

Because where he is it’s warm, and tender, comfortable the way he’s never really felt in the presence of the few other men who were allowed to touch him like this. Then again, no other man has ever touched him quite like this.

Lying close on the length of the sofa, his and Daichi’s legs twine. Their bodies press in even closer and suddenly Suga is not sure anymore where he ends and Daichi begins. He kisses Daichi, he kisses his lips, the column of his throat, the fingers that keep brushing his hair away from his face.

“I don’t have anywhere to be tonight,” he whispers on the line of his jaw.

Daichi shivers at his touch, and then again at his words. “Good,” he says. He turns a little and captures Suga’s lips in his.

With the lazy silence that surrounds them they slow down. Their hands meet along their sides, busy as they were trying to get underneath the clothes, and come joined palm against palm, Suga’s fingers a perfect fit in the spaces between Daichi’s.

They turn on the TV, just so, just to pretend they are doing something and when reruns of Fullmetal Alchemist start Suga turns his back to Daichi to watch. And that too, is lovely. Comfortable, tender.

Daichi wraps his arms around his waist and watches with him, he asks questions between breaks because apparently he never saw it – and that’s tragic, let’s be honest, but now Suga knows what to watch next time they have a movie marathon night – and stays quiet when it starts again.

Slowly, to the lull of Roy Mustang’s voice and the soft touch of Daichi’s thumb on his hipbone Suga closes his eyes. Just for a moment, just to rest them. They are so tired, after all, his eyes.

They are so tired.

 

 

*

 

Daichi waits for the episode to end to ask in a quiet whisper the question that’s been raging inside his chest for the past hour and a half. “What the hell is Envy’s issue?”

He receives no answer.

Careful he moves so he can peek at Suga’s face and smiles when he finds him sound asleep. Lips parted, still red and sore from their kisses, they move around words Daichi can’t make out, that maybe, probably don’t even exist. Eyelashes flutter on his cheeks, with the power of his dreams, and his chest is rising, in slow and deep breaths, completely calm.

When he’s awake Suga is never this calm. Even as he’s standing perfectly still Daichi can see an endless stream of thoughts reflected in his eyes, that sometimes causes his brows to furrow or his lips to purse in an alluring pout. But now, now he’s peaceful.

And it nearly breaks Daichi’s heart just how beautiful he looks.

For a while he lies still, close to Suga he hugs him lightly to his chest and keeps watching Fullmetal Alchemist in silence. He gets into it fast.

Onyx moves from her perch by their legs and cuddles close to Suga’s chest, fixes Daichi with a look that speaks almost of approval. She yawns and purrs and licks Daichi’s hand before finally closing her eyes again. She looks tired too. Daichi has to wonder just what the heck went down at their apartment last night.

He knows Suga spreads himself too thin sometimes. He’s determined and hardworking, he gives himself a schedule and he refuses to change it even to accommodate his basic needs, see: eat, sleep, in fact he often acts against them. Laser-focused and stubborn. Daichi is sure he was up till late in the night to study. But then? That can’t be all of it.

Why didn’t he just sleep through the morning?

“You stubborn, stubborn man,” he whisper in Suga’s hair and presses a kiss on his temple, on the tip of his ear.

Suga shifts in his arms and for a moment Daichi is afraid he woke him. Thankfully Suga just hums low in his throat, as if to agree with him, and moves even closer into Daichi’s body. He looks for him even in his sleep, Daichi likes to think of it this way.

“You drive me insane, you know that?” he asks and he receives no answers but for another hum, another fluttering of eyelashes.

It’s anger sometimes that makes him lose his wits, for how little consideration of himself Suga holds, for the ease with which he seems to detect Daichi’s weakest points. More often it’s want, desire to hold him, the need to keep him forever close and have him in every way, have him but never own him. But mostly…it’s just love, and in front of it Daichi is powerless.

He’s powerless and it feels good, terrifying but good, to finally be vulnerable. Let himself be vulnerable.

He kisses Suga again, this time on the cheek, gentler than before, and slowly he moves away from the warmth of their closeness. He scratches Onyx’s head and stands on uncertain feet.

It’s almost 9 pm and he’s hungry. He could order pizza, or something from that excellent Vietnamese place down the street, but he doesn’t feel like it. He turns the TV off so it won’t bother Suga – and Onyx, of course – and makes his way to the kitchen to see if there’s something he can cook.

Then, as he’s staring into the fridge hoping for inspiration an idea comes to him.

 

Suga wakes when it’s almost ready, and stumbling and muttering under his breath he takes a few steps toward the kitchen, attracted by the smell of roasted duck coming from the other side of the semi-closed door.

Daichi watches him through the chink of it, ready to stop him as soon as he comes too close but a few breaths away from him, all of a sudden, Suga stops on his own. With a wince he takes a step back, as if he was just hit in the face by a powerful backhand, and covers his face in mortification.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God…”

Daichi sets the timer for the duck, checks the potatoes cooking in the pan and makes his way to him, careful to close the door behind him. “Suga?”

At the sound of his voice Suga winces again and shakes his head with so much emphasis his hair flies everywhere, sticks to his lips, gets into his eyes. “Oh God…”

“Suga what-”

“I fell asleep!”

Ah, so that’s the problem.

“We have the entire house to ourselves, we have the _time_ and what do I do? I fall asleep!”

“Suga, really, it’s not a big deal-”

“Like a baby, or…or like a sloth. Like a baby sloth, I flomp on your couch and like that,” he snaps his fingers, “I’m out like a light. God, Daichi I’m so sorry…”

There is a crease on his cheek, the shape of a flower for the embroidery of the cushion he’d been sleeping on and his eyes are still a little hazy, wide and alarmed but still out of focus. Hair a complete mess on his head and clothes all wrinkled he is adorable, and like always Daichi is powerless before him.

So he kisses him, making yet another apology go unvoiced.

Between more he tells him to wait, just a moment, right where he’s standing and rushes to the kitchen to get the first of the aces up his sleeve.

Suga blinks at him like he’s lost his mind but when Daichi hands it to him he takes the rose between his fingers, almost too gentle and with a breathtaking smile on his face.

“What is this?” he asks, but he knows, he can’t not know.

It’s a white rose, after all. Even Daichi knows what it means.

Words stumble out of his mouth, clumsy and nervous “Go out with me,” they are not even phrased like a real question. He curses under his breath, because once again he messed up the most simple thing, but Suga laughs at his tongue-tie.

Behind the petals of the flower his eyes are twinkling. “Yes. Yes, I’ll go out with you.”

“Just tell me where and when and I’ll be there,” he half teases.

Daichi looks away from magnetic, impossibly bright gold, and clears his throat, he gestures awkwardly to the kitchen door behind them. “Actually, um, I was thinking right now.”

It had seemed like a good idea earlier. A couple of candles, the lights turned low, good food and each other’s company, comfortable, easy. Like them. But now that Suga is staring at him, surprised, in complete silence, Daichi is not so sure anymore.

Maybe…maybe he should have tried harder for their first date. He should have thought of a special place to take Suga, he should have wowed him, he should have…he should have at least changed out of his sweatpants.

“Fuck, I’m sorry, you were…you were expecting something more, weren’t you? Listen, let’s just forget-”

“Yes!” Suga’s voice echoes in every corner of the living room, loud and breathy and excited and Daichi’s mouth clicks closed. “Yes, I would, I would love to…stay in with you. Now.”

“See, because we are not going out technically-”

“Yeah, I got it.”

They look at each other, biting back smiles and shifting their weights from one foot to the other. Daichi feels like a little kid on Golden Week, in his chest bubbles an addictive sort of excitement. He elbows the kitchen door open and leads Suga inside, a hand firmly clasped in his.

It’s not much, a clean tablecloth of a silver-azure color, two long-stemmed candles placed carefully in the middle of the table and the fancy plates and cutleries Daichi takes out in special occasion, that glitter in the glow of the flames as if brand new. It’s not much but Suga is still beaming at him, so really that’s all that matters.

Daichi makes a show of moving back his chair for him and Suga throws his head back and laughs, beautiful and clear like the chiming of bells.

“So what’s on the menu tonight, good sir?”

Daichi bows and throws a cloth on his arm, like a real sommelier. “Tonight’s special is crunchy duck with a reduction sauce of tawny Porto, roasted potatoes and a fresh side salad.”

“Sounds absolutely marvelous.”

Then, before Daichi can step behind the island and continue the preparation Suga drops the posh accent, and with it the whole act. “Can I help you with something?”

“Nope.”

But of course Suga stands. “Come on now, Dai. Every great chef has a trusty sous-chef by his side.”

“Yeah but what kind of date is it then if we are both here cooking?”

Arms wrap around Daichi’s waist, and chest against back Suga presses a slow, slow stream of kisses on his nape, the crook of his neck, his shoulder. “It’s the kind of date I like best,” he whispers in his ear, before kissing there too, sweet and light and lovely.

“I love cooking with you.”

And Daichi’s eyes fall close under his touch, lulled by the honeyed hue in his voice. Because he loves that too, cooking with Suga. Coming home to his children and watching Suga make a mess in his kitchen, that’s the best part of his days. Chopping vegetables in rhythm and navigating around each other’s bodies, hip-checking and teasing, staring at the flour dusting Suga’s cheek.

He loves that too.

He loves…

Slowly their breaths sync. “You are not playing fair…” Daichi says, and keeps the rest to himself.

Suga answers in kind. “No, I’m not.”

Kisses turns into nibbles on the side of Daichi’s jaw. “I never do.”

“Plus I doubt you thought about making a dessert.”

The words register with delay in Daichi’s brain, but when they do he freezes. Of course he hadn’t.

Suga chuckles in his shoulder and squeezes his waist tight, fond. “I’m making brownies,” he declares and moves away with one last, smacking kiss on Daichi’s cheek.

Daichi can do nothing else but nod…and watch, from the corner of his eyes, the flakes of dark chocolate stain Suga’s fingers black and sticky.

 

The duck is ready in fifteen minutes and when he slices it Daichi can’t keep the smugness to himself. “Perfect as usual.”

Suga peeks at it, the perfectly caramelized fat, the pink of the meat, and nods in approval. “Looks good, but will it be good enough for my brownies?”

“Don’t you worry about that, Sugawara.”

They cut the vegetables for the salad together, shoulder to shoulder in complete silence, only Suga’s hums of songs to fill the quiet. That is, until Daichi notices the unevenness of Suga’s julienne. “No, not like that,” he says and leaves his spot to step behind Suga, the same way Suga had done with him just minutes before.

“You want the blade to touch the chopping board at the end of the gesture, you see?”

He covers Suga’s hand with his own and together they find a new rhythm.

Chop. Chop. Chop.

Dumpa, dumpa, du-

“Heart and soul. I fell in love with you, heart and soul.”

Daichi hides a smile in Suga’s hair. “Did we fall into an episode of Frasier?”

“Don’t give me that, Sawamura, I know you were thinking the same thing!”

“You got me.”

Daichi averts his eyes from the counter, the board, the blade of the knife, and looks down at the expanse of Suga’s neck, the clavicle, his delicate nape. “You got me.”

Heart and soul.

With his free hand he brushes Suga’s hair away and finds a mole hidden there, so small it’s nearly a freckle, and near it five more, to form a sort of downturned Latin cross. But more than that it looks like…

“You have a constellation on the back of your neck.”

Suga grins at him. “Does it look like a cross?”

“Yeah. I’ve seen it before but I don’t remember…”

“Cygnus.”

Cygnus. The constellation of the swan.

Daichi smiles too and he kisses each and every one of those dark stars, starting from the one right above the collar of Suga’s shirt, the farthest down – Deneb. Suga shivers at the touch, starts under his lips, and Daichi moves to the one above. Then to the ones at the sides, the wings.

Last comes his newest discovery and there Daichi lingers to take in the wonderful smell of Suga’s hair.

_I was right._

_Flowers._

“That’s enough for the salad,” he says and his voice comes out just as dark, deeper than it usually is. He puts away the knife and turns Suga toward him with hands steady on his waist.

He leans down, to catch Suga’s lips in yet another kiss, but all he meets is his index finger. “The duck will get cold,” he says, the absolute minx, and takes the plates from the table to make the portions.

“This is the second time in the matter of months I’m getting cockblocked by a goddamn duck,” Daichi grumbles, cuts the second breast with a little too much violence.

“Hopefully it’s not the same duck, though.”

He and Suga share a look and burst out laughing.

 

They made two separate, identical plates but Daichi should have known it was pointless. After just two bites Suga has already stolen a potato and a sliced carrot from him.

When he tries going for the duck Daichi parries the attack with his fork.

“Why do you always do this?”

Suga chuckles and desists. “Because it’s fun,” is all he says, then he takes a piece of his duck and feeds it to Daichi. The sauce smears on Daichi’s lips. On purpose, no doubt about it, and he licks it all away.

“ _This_ is fun,” Daichi whispers in the narrow space between their mouths. Tilts his head a little to the left and kisses Suga again, to chase the sweetness of wine on his tongue.

“I have to agree on that.”

Suga is panting after they separate and the color on his cheeks is lovely to look at. Daichi finds another potato missing then, but he chooses to ignore it in favor of staring at Suga some more.

And even if he had decided to hold a grudge for the food stolen he wouldn’t have taken much time to forgive because the next time their eyes meet across the table Suga stands, so sudden his chair screeches, and makes his way to him.

In a blink he finds his place on Daichi’s lap.

“To think Javert chased Jean Valjean for, like, twenty years because he’d stolen a stupid loaf of bread…”

“Yeah but Jean Valjean never thought of sitting on Javert’s lap.”

“Victor Hugo is rolling around in his grave as we speak.”

Suga laughs again and the sight of his dimples is enough to cause Daichi’s heart to miss a beat. “You are so fucking adorable,” he says, out of breath and out of wits he’s so completely charmed.

“And you are very comfortable,” Suga tells him. Rests his cheek on Daichi’s with a tenderness he rarely shows.

Daichi wraps his arms around him and surrounded by his warmth he closes his eyes.

His hands follow the line of Suga’s spine, first through the fabric of his shirt then underneath it, but never with a real purpose, never with rush. He stops whenever he feels the shape of a mole, to trace it, press his thumb against it, and they are so many.

He notices the uneven pattern of a scar, feels the way Suga draws in a breath if he touches certain spots. On the sides he’s ticklish if he’s teased with only the pads of fingertips, but when Daichi presses his full palm on him he immediately relaxes. At the dip of his spine he hums, his eyelashes flutter on Daichi’s cheek.

Daichi smirks. With his touch he pairs kisses on the line of Suga’s jaw and soon the hums become stifled moans and unforgettable whimpers. He stores every sound away, every shiver, every response he gets he stores it in that corner of his mind that is only dedicated to Suga.

There isn’t much for now, that tells Daichi of the ways of Suga’s body, but slowly he’ll learn. He promises himself he will learn everything in the time they are given together.

He shifts to nibble at Suga’s earlobe and the whimper and muffled laughter that follow confuse him like anything in his life. Ticklish or sensitive? What if it’s both?

“Dai?”

“Uh-uh?”

He tries again. Suga’s fingers curl around the fabric of his shirt.

“Dai- _oh_ , t-there’s a cat on your kitchen counter.”

“Mmm, of course…”

So if he pulls it a certain way-

Wait, what?

Daichi finally opens his eyes again and follows Suga’s line of sight. Sure enough, Onyx is walking through chopping boards and cooking pans, careful to jump over the stove and sniffing the air around her for some food.

“There should be some pork from the other day in the fridge, we could give her that,” Daichi murmurs in the dip of Suga’s neck.

After moments of silence suddenly hands cup his face and Suga kisses him, forceful and close-mouthed, as if to prove a point.

“You,” a kiss, “are,” another kiss, “the sweetest.” And three more kisses.

Daichi laughs, he can’t not at the serious look on Suga’s face, and they stand to fix Onyx dinner.

Rule number 1: Suga likes it when you care about his cat.

 

They eat together, Onyx and Suga perched on the kitchen island and Daichi blissfully standing between Suga’s legs.

“These brownies are fantastic.”

“I told you so.”

“But I don’t know if they top my duck…”

Suga gestures for him to wait and drops a big dollop of vanilla ice-cream on Daichi’s portion. “Try now.”

And Daichi sees stars. Ok, technically the ice-cream was not made by Suga but holy shit delicious.

“Now, how good is that?”

Intelligible moaning on his part. To fill the silence and clarify his position he kisses away the drop of ice-cream that somehow found its way to the tip of Suga’s nose. “Give my compliments to the chef,” he says and grins when Suga throws his arms around his neck.

Now he’s even easier to kiss.

This wasn’t how Daichi had planned it, eating on the island away from the glow of the candles, their clothes all covered in delicious brownie crumbs and a cat that snoops around everywhere. But then again, nothing about this situation was planned. Suga wasn’t planned.

And maybe, Daichi thinks, that’s one of the reasons why this is so damn good.

Suga tugs insistently at his hair and Daichi deepens the kiss.

Yeah, so fucking good.

 

 

*

 

They watch a movie, cuddled close on the couch like before and it’s wonderful. Suga couldn’t tell you what the movie was about but it’s wonderful.

The touch of Daichi’s hands on his skin, wonderful. The way he smiles into their kisses, wonderful. How he plays with Suga’s hair, brushes them away when they cover his face. The way he’s looking at him now…

“I never thought dinner in our sweatpants and a movie that has Bruce Willis in it would make for the best date I’ve ever had. And yet…”

Wonderful.

Suga pinches Daichi’s side. “That’s because the date is with me, Sawamura.”

Daichi yelps and tugs at his wrist until Suga is lying on him, on his warm, wonderfully solid body. “I shouldn’t have doubted you earlier, Sugawara.”

“You bet your ass you shouldn’t have, but in my immense kindness I forgive you.”

“Thank you very much.”

On the screen a car blows up but except for Onyx, who jumps out of her skin and runs to hide between their bodies and the back of the couch, neither of them notices.

Until, that is, Suga yawns again. Right against Daichi’s mouth.

_Why, God, why?_

Daichi stills for a long, endless moment, eyes wide with surprise, and Suga wants to scream. He wants to run back to his apartment, stop in front of his mirror and scream every obscenity he knows in every language he’s studied to his dumb reflection of a dumbass.

Not only did he fall asleep earlier, leaving Daichi virtually alone for two hours, no, he also just yawned in his face. He yawned in the face of the love of his life. That’s completely unacceptable and also woah there, what the hell did he just think of Daichi as?

Oh shit, now he’s got two reasons to run away.

“You’re so cute.”

And Daichi is smiling at him. Without a moment more of hesitation he moves Suga’s hands away from his face and forces him to meet his eyes. His expression has turned unbearably tender.

“I’ll drive you home, ok?”

“No, I’m fine I promise I just-”

“How many hours of sleep did you get last night?”

Suga bites the inside of his cheek. “Six?”

“Yeah, alright, and I’m weird Al.”

“Ok, ok, um, thirty minutes?”

Daichi hugs him to his chest and in five minutes he’s starting the car, his free hand steady on Suga’s knee, to cover his own.

 

They walk slow to Suga’s door and in front of it they kiss till they are both out of breath.

“Can I see you tomorrow?” Daichi asks, with his fingers still in Suga’s hair.

If Suga weren’t so dizzy with him, the comforting smell of his skin, the warmth of his touch, he would joke. Smirk and say “Already?” or “You’re not tired of me yet?”. As it is all he can do is nod and whisper a thousand ‘yes’ on his lips.

“Yes, yes, yes…”

“God, if only I weren’t so damn tired…” he means to think to himself but it echoes, annoyingly whiny to his ears, and shit he really is tired. Much more tired than he thought, if his thoughts come out of his mouth with no filter or shame.

Once again, all Daichi does is smile. Endeared, a little smug. “What? You’d invite me inside?”

He waggles his eyebrows in jest but his arms tighten around Suga’s frame, his eyes turn even darker.

“I never put out on the first date,” Suga says. And to prove his point, of course, he licks into Daichi’s mouth. Parts his lips with insistence, draws low moans out of his throat.

It’s Onyx who calls them to order. Stuck inside the carrier for too long, she starts scratching at the plastic walls of it and meows long and loud in the dark of night.

As if burned Daichi takes Suga by the arms and forces him away from him. “Right. Right.”

He passes a shaky hand in his hair. “Right, goodnight.”

In the next breath he brushes Suga’s bangs away from his eyes. “Promise me you’ll get some sleep,” he says, and even as his voice is still trembling with want he sounds so, so impossibly tender. His thumb draws careful circles on Suga’s cheek.

“I will.”

Suga turns into his touch and kisses his palm. “I promise.”

And with that Daichi leaves.

Suga watches his car disappear behind the corner and only then steps inside the apartment. He lets Onyx out of her cage and watches her disappear behind the couch, it doesn’t take him long to understand why.

Tooru looks like shit.

He doesn’t raise his eyes to meet Suga, all he says is “We won.”

Suga doesn’t congratulate him, now is not the time, but instead takes him by the hand and walks him to his bedroom.

They both fall asleep as soon as their cheeks hit the pillow.


	29. Cascading red and white

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hopeless romantic.

Suga rings his doorbell at 10 am sharp looking well-rested and alert, impossibly beautiful backlit by the bright morning sun. He smiles at Daichi and it’s almost dazzling, kisses him by the front porch before Daichi even has the time to say ‘hi’.

Daichi is so not going to protest that.

He welcomes Suga in his arms – that’s where Suga should always be, in his arms - and kisses him back, slow and unrushed, calm. Because today, today is all for them.

Today they have all the time in the world.

“You look nice,” Suga says on his lips, thumbs at the soft fabric of Daichi’s red T-shirt. The first words spoken. “Red is your color.”

Daichi smiles at him. “I know. You’ve said it before.”

_And I made sure to remember._

“Did I? When?”

“When you were picking the right nail polish for me. You recall that time you set my own daughter against me?”

Suga looks away, puts his finger on his chin in fake contemplation, then he shrugs, a devilish grin on his face. “I got nothing.”

Daichi drags him back toward him by the belt loops of his – tight, marvelously tight jeans – and kisses him again. His hands fall, low on Suga’s waist they move to follow the perfect curve of his hips, knead at the soft flesh there.

“Nice jeans,” he says once they’ve separated and Suga…Suga moves into his hands so they are resting even more snug on him.

Daichi doesn’t know if he’s mentioned but he fucking loves this man. “So where, um, where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” is all Suga answers with.

He walks toward the gate first and Daichi lets him, for the few steps that separate them from the outside world his eyes are all for the miracle before him…low on his eyesight and clad in elastic jeans fabric. Then, as they finally step out on the street, he finds his place by Suga’s side and takes his hand in his, without hesitations.

 

Suga is tight-lipped about their destination throughout the entire train ride and Daichi manages to keep his curiosity at bay only by holding him close. Pressed against the doors on the side that won’t open they have to keep the other from falling every time the train stops, no way to reach a handle in the morning crowd.

Plus it’s hot in there and Daichi is sure some of their neighbors either don’t know how to work a shower or drowned themselves in cologne but then again Suga’s ass is pressed tightly against his crotch so for once Daichi is actually kind of grateful for the stench. Keeps his mind busy from going places.

Marvelous, mature-rated places that would mean getting arrested for public indecency if Daichi were to act on them.

But fuck if this isn’t the hardest thing Daichi’s ever had to do.

His hands twitch from tension around Suga’s waist and Suga covers them with his own, in a show of tenderness Daichi doesn’t deserve. “What is it, Dai?” Suga asks him, turning his face to the side so he can stare back at him from the corner of his eye.

_Dai._

Daichi attempts a casual shrug but the tension in his shoulders makes it awkward instead.

The train, of course, chooses that exact moment to stop, slow and dragged, and Suga shifts against him to keep his footing. He shifts and presses even closer to him and Daichi sees stars. His breath catches in his throat and he bites his lips not to have it become a whine.

Suga turns again and when he sees the color spreading fast down Daichi’s neck his eyes widen in understanding. “Oh.”

He moves on him again. It’s torture, it’s heaven.

Daichi stops him with a shake of his head. “Don’t.”

Blood is thrumming in his veins, directed in equal parts low in his stomach – and then lower still – and up to his face. If Suga encourages him he will lose the last shreds of dignity he has left and that can’t happen. Because he is a father, he has children, and his criminal record cannot be tainted, it can’t mark him as the kind of man who would – and did - hump his boyfriend on a crowded train.

Even though, oh, even though that would feel so fucking good in the moment.

A couple of people get off at the stop and before more can step in Suga stands on his tippy toes and grabs the handle above the head of a man the size of a closet. There is space now between their bodies and as relieved as Daichi feels that he won’t be marked as a pervert any time soon and shame his entire family…he’s also more than a little disappointed. And cold.

“I…um,” he looks for words to say to Suga, an apology or an excuse to give but all he manages is senseless stammering that makes no sense whatsoever.

Suga watches him struggle for a while, an annoyingly amused smirk on his face, then he gestures for Daichi to lean down toward him.

As soon as Daichi is close enough he presses a chaste, lingering kiss on his cheek. Then after another just as chaste, open-mouthed kiss, he whispers in his ear “You are lucky our stop is next, Sawamura.”

He noses at the shell of it and Daichi shivers from head to toe, like a frail autumn leaf against the howling wind.

Their bodies come in contact again, for one more perfect, endless moment and he sighs, helpless in the crook of Suga’s neck.

The speaker announces the approaching stop and just like that it’s over. Suga moves away, toward the opening doors, and with a steady hand, impossibly hot around his wrist, he leads Daichi outside.

The sun catches in his hair, turning it white and gold. “How do you like amusement parks?” he asks and Daichi doesn’t even have the time to answer that they are running, fast and breathless, toward laughter and colored lights and nostalgic jingles.

 

 

*

 

Initially Suga had looked into the park to see if he and Daichi could take the kids sometimes, maybe on a week-end when Yurika-san doesn’t have them, but today he’d woken up with a jingle stuck in his head.

That carousel’s jingle, that unlike most of the details of his dreams never seems to change. Always the same like the sightless white horse and the blue carriage, the trees all around the space, it resounds in his ears like a memory from days long past.

Suga is starting to think that’s exactly what it is. A memory, colored in time by nostalgic, chaotic dreams.

So when he takes Daichi by the hand, finally in broad daylight, where everyone can see, is with a smile on his face that’s as much excited as it is nervous. He wants to make more memories, that’s why he decided to come here. Memories that are rose-tinted and not so easily overshadowed by the weight of his childhood.

He wants to have fun, he wants _Daichi_ to have fun. He wants them to forget the stress of school and work, the stress of living as the grown-ups they are supposed to be, just for one day.

That’s not bad, is it?

Daichi links their fingers together as they are waiting in line to enter and Suga turns around to see…to see the brightest of smiles stretching across his face. Without a moment of hesitation he smiles back.

No, he reckons, that’s not bad at all.

 

They walk around first, through the stands of aiming games and candy, to eye the prizes and decide what to do first and their arms swing with every step they take, silly like the laughs they’ll break into whenever they catch each other’s eyes.

“Why are you laughing?”

“I don’t know, Dai, why are _you_ laughing?”

No answer is ever given but past a ring toss stand Daichi tugs on his hand and wraps an arm around his waist. Uncaring of the few pairs of eyes fixed on them he kisses Suga’s temple and with a challenging grin he asks the man behind the counter to please hand him a pack of rings.

The pegs around which he has to throw the rings are not classic plastic or wooden pegs but small swan statuettes that keep moving around in a small tank filled with water, as to create a lake.

Suga gestures for the keeper to hand him some rings too and together he and Daichi begin their battle. The first throw they both miss, Suga miscalculates the distance between himself and the tank and the ring bounces back on the edge of it, Daichi’s ring flies right above a swan’s head and splashes sadly on the water, causing no casualties.

On the second throw they aim to opposite ends of the tank…and end up hindering each other as a result. Their rings draw straight lines in the air and collide against each other.

“Give me some space, Suga!”

“You give me some space, I threw mine first!”

But on the third throw they both hit, their rings falling straight around two different swans’ heads. Without looking away from the tank they go for a high-five.

“Great! You got a red swan and a yellow one, when you’re done you can pick your prizes!” The keeper lists all the games and plushies they can pick from but neither Daichi nor Suga are listening.

They exchange a look from the corner of their eyes and together they smirk. There is a swan at the centre with a small crown on its head, first Suga, then Daichi aim straight for it.

They both miss but Daichi catches a green swan anyway. Suga wastes no time in throwing his fifth ring next. Without thinking too much about it he flicks his arm, sharp and sudden and fast, and releases the ring before it can draw a complete arc in the air.

It’s a perfect fit. As if trapped in slow-motion Suga watches the ring fly above every other swan’s head and get caught exactly around the smallest one’s neck. It keeps rolling even in place, like a hula hoop and it’s only when it finally settles that Suga lets himself celebrate.

“Yes! I knew you were my lucky one, purple!”

“Good job, lad!”

Daichi beams at him from the other end of the stand. Suga throws his other ring distractedly, he’s achieved his mission after all, and stands still to watch Daichi in peace.

“Show me what you can do, handsome!”

It slips. The few kids gathered around to see start and look from him to Daichi in varying degrees of confusion or amusement but still they keep in religious silence.

The tips of Daichi’s ears have gone red.

He throws the first of his last two rings and misses by less than an inch.

“So close!” one of the smallest children cries, then blushes as all eyes fall on him.

All except for Suga’s.

He leans back on the stand, elbow firmly planted on painted wood and smirks at the man before him, with the same challenge in his eyes Daichi had been wearing earlier. “Come on, captain,” he breathes out and immediately he catches the shiver running through Daichi’s body.

Then he falls silent.

Daichi straightens and for a moment he closes his eyes in concentration. He takes a deep breath and his hand around the ring loosens its rigid hold. He opens his eyes again and with the next breath he throws.

Suga doesn’t follow the path the ring takes, he doesn’t need to. He knows it’s not going to miss this time.

After a single beat Daichi raises his arms to the sky.

They only claim one prize because as soon as Suga sees the little bee plushie he’s reminded of Kaede and he just can’t not take it. The rest, they whisper to the keeper to give it to the children who want it.

They move onto the next stand through the cheers of little kids, Daichi’s arm once again low around Suga’s waist.

 

They take down piles of tin cans and test their strength with the hammer. At the first Suga wins with a throw so accurate he has Daichi and the stand keeper gaping at him, the next…well, it doesn’t take a genius to guess who between him and Daichi is the strongest.

Just look at the difference in their frames. Just look at the size of Daichi’s biceps.

Suga sure is.

He picks a spot on the side of the small crowd and he admires Daichi’s profile. Unabashed and slow, he starts from the strong line of his jaw, then, still chaste, he trails down the line of his neck, his beautiful, solid shoulders.

Then Daichi lifts the hammer and the muscles in his arms bulge and Suga is so fucking doomed. Right from the beginning he’d said it, when he and Daichi had met at that cafè for a simple work interview, he’d said he was screwed. To Tooru, he’d even texted him so.

And he was right, he’s screwed because for all that is good and pure, the man before his eyes is a fucking dream come true.

A strip of his stomach shows as his shirt rides up, revealing a dark trail of hair and the definition of his abdominal muscles, gorgeous skin of a warm, olive color and a sigh slips past Suga’s lips.

Daichi bends slightly on his thighs, his thick, thick thighs that Suga knows look like they were carved from marble and he hits with all his strength.

Ding. Ding. Ding!

“Looks like we have a winner here!”

_Yeah_ , Suga thinks to himself, _that’d_ _be_ _me_.

_I won the fucking jackpot._

Daichi turns at once to grin at him, wide and so, so goofy, pleased that Suga was watching but not smug, and hands him a prize before Suga can pick from the selection of items on the table.

But once the plushie comes into focus Suga realizes he doesn’t need to. He doubts anything could top this jellyfish plushie anyway.

“It will go great with your new shrimp shirt,” Daichi says, he teases with a fond edge to his tone and Suga is careful to caress the back of his hand as he takes the stuffed toy in his own.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” Daichi shrugs.

Once they are away from the crowd, covered by the shadows cast by the High Striker Suga taps him gently on the inside of his elbow. Daichi stops to ask him what’s up, what’s wrong, do you not like the plushie?, but Suga shakes his head at all the unvoiced questions and kisses him.

Soft, on the lips. Daichi doesn’t even have the time to close his eyes and when Suga opens his he finds a hopeless sort of dizziness swirling in the depths of impossibly dark brown.

“What was that for?”

Suuga nuzzles his cheek, he doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know how to. Instead he says, a whisper against Daichi’s skin “Take me to the bumper cars line before I get too sappy…”

_And throw away all caution, all decency in order to kiss you silly, right here where we are standing._

Daichi clears his throat, once, twice, then when all he manages to get out is a breathless croak he just gives up on words and nods. His cheeks are nearly the same color of his shirt and Suga is so completely and utterly charmed by him.

He is so wonderfully in love.

They walk slowly to the circuit, that is large and exactly at the centre of the amusement park, impossible to miss, and they don’t speak. They catch each other’s eyes though and in Daichi’s Suga reads everything he needs to know.

 

Hitting each other with crazily painted cars takes away some of the warmth coiling lazy in Suga’s stomach, or better causes it to catch on fire. Turns it into a sort of wild elation, that has Suga laughing maniacally whenever his car is hit by a familiar face.

“I’ll get you for that!” he yells after a particularly nasty crash and Daichi cackles from the other side of the circuit where he’s run to for cover.

Suga avoids another car for the skin of his teeth and starts a mad chase around the circuit. Daichi is ahead of him, too far ahead, and these cars are not exactly designed to hit crazy speeds.

Suga is hit on the side by a bright yellow car and almost ends with his bumper in the edge of the circuit. Almost, and just as he’s struggling to get out, before any more cars decide to pile on him, he’s hit with a realization.

No, these cars aren’t made for speeding, but they can still change course.

So he turns. Instead of chasing Daichi he approaches him, front to front, face to face. Daichi notices him when it’s far too late.

They crash, in the middle of the circuit, and soon more cars join, hitting them from all sides.

The power stops, it’s time for the next group to start and they are all so tightly fit into one, single space Suga and many others are forced to hop from car to car to get out of the chaos. On the last hop to freedom Suga finds Daichi waiting for him, out of breath and still shaken with laughter. He takes Suga by the waist and lifts him up and off the hood of a cherry red car like he’s made of feathers.

“Come on, I saw you rubbing your knee earlier…” he explains as he puts his arm back around Suga’s waist.

Didn’t see him coming for him all the way through opposite ends of the circuit but he caught _that_. This man is just unbelievable.

“Yeah, I hit it against the steering wheel when the yellow car ran me over.”

He forgot in the rush of the chase but now that Daichi mentions it still kind of hurts. He will probably have a nasty purple and blue bruise by tomorrow.

Daichi nods in sympathy. “I saw that. To be honest, I’m feeling a little rough for wear myself.”

He laughs as they half walk half limp away from the circuit. “Maybe we are getting too old for this,” he says.

And he gets an elbow stuck between his ribs for the trouble. “Oh, hell no, Daichi. I expect we keep going bumping cars till we are well in our nineties!”

Suga raises his voice as he says it and only when it’s out in the world, echoes in the air between them that he realizes the implications behind it.

We, us, well in our nineties, still doing this. Together.

Heat rushes over him, embarrassment and shame for having given himself away so completely, in a way that cannot be mistaken and he turns his face to the other side. To the stands, to the children begging for candy, to anywhere, anything that isn’t Daichi, so nothing else will pour from his lips, nothing else will be forced out in the open by the foolish, incontrollable longing in his eyes.

Fingertips stroke his jaw, force his chin up and toward what he cannot face. “Suga…”

“I’m sorry,” he hurries to say.

“No, Suga, there’s no need to-”

“I don’t know what came over me.”

“ _Koushi_.”

Once again in the matter of minutes Suga’s mouth falls shut. Koushi.

Has Daichi ever called him by his first name before?

“Koushi,” – _again_ – “I was…I was going to say that it sounds a lot of fun.”

Coming here, when we are ninety.

Suga looks up at Daichi, through the veil of his eyelashes, and now it’s Daichi’s turn to look away. Now it’s Daichi’s turn to blush.

For the next few minutes they walk in complete silence, images upon images of their future taking shape inside their minds.

 

There are many types of merry-go-rounds in the amusement park but none of them even remotely resembles the carousel of Suga’s dreams.

There are spinning cups and flying elephants, all inspired by animated movies the children can recognize the characters from, the only white horses he can see are those attached to Cinderella’s pumpkin and they all have a ridiculous panache on their heads.

Nothing like his dreams.

The jingle that plays is different, the colors are different, everything is different.

Suga stops in front of it, the one with Cinderella and the other Disney princesses, and doesn’t even notice Daichi tugging at his hand. He notice nothing at all until Daichi finally speaks.

“I know you don’t like to hear it, Suga, but for that one I’m afraid we really are too old.”

“Oh it’s not, I don’t want to go…”

_I just don’t know whether I should feel relieved or…or sad._

He came here almost looking for those white horses, the golden rods, the blue carriage but only now he realizes just how stupid that was. Of course he wouldn’t find them here, two continents away.

“Hey?”

Suga turns to face Daichi again and attempts a smile. It doesn’t fool either of them.

Fuck, he’s _still_ being stupid. He’s here with Daichi, _Daichi_ , and he’s wasting time thinking about things that have no solution. “I’m sorry, I-”

“Will you stop apologizing already?”

Daichi’s hand, the one that is not holding tightly on his, lands on the small of his back and through the fabric of his shirt Suga can feel his thumb drawing circles in his skin.

“I recognize that look,” Daichi continues, and he doesn’t sound mad that Suga’s attention has slipped somewhere else, he doesn’t sound annoyed, just…concerned. “Want to tell me what’s up?”

Suga does. After all Daichi has come to know – and understand about him – lying, hiding things from him or dismissing them as unimportant has long become undoable.

Because Suga is no longer willing to.

“I told you I have dreams about…about _her_.”

“Yeah.”

“Well they are all, they change every time of course but they are always…I’m always on a carousel when I see her. That’s why I, that’s why I’m standing here like an idiot.”

“Mmm. Do you think that…?”

“That it’s a memory of sorts?”

“Yeah.”

“Yes, I’m starting to, because it’s always exactly the same carousel. Other things change, the seasons, my clothes, my mom’s features but the details of that carousel always stay the same.”

The hand in his shifts and suddenly their fingers are entwined.

Suga looks down at them, at the way Daichi’s skin tone complements his own and his feelings settle, into something calm and warm and comforting. It takes him a while to recognize it.

Security. The knowledge that, even if he were to break to pieces, someone would be able to glue them all back together. Because that’s how well Daichi knows him.

“My father brought me a photo album from when I was little. When…my mother was still with us.”

He’s not going to break though. He won’t let that happen to himself.

Stability. Faith.

“I haven’t looked at it yet though, but I will.”

He will, he knows. And this time it’s not going to take him twenty years. He squeezes Daichi’s hand and smiles a smile that’s honest, not wide but honest.

Daichi smiles back. “I know you will.”

Then he asks “Why haven’t you already?” without reproach or surprise, just genuine curiosity.

It’s the kind of question only he and Tooru could ask without the fear of hurting him. They are the only two men Suga trusts to never walk on eggshells around him.

And so his smile turns wider. “Because it was the day after we kissed.”

Daichi’s face opens in understanding.

“I wanted to…to prolong that feeling, soak in it for as long as I could. And I knew that, that if I looked through that album more feelings would come along that had…that had nothing to do with how happy I was.”

_How happy I am._

“They still managed to come just in time for making me ruin our date,” he finishes with a joke that’s half an apology and Daichi, as with all the things that really, truly matter, understands.

With children spinning by and all around them parents waving and chatting he takes Suga’s hand to his lips, kisses his knuckles and fingers, the back of it. “You didn’t ruin anything, Suga,” he says.

“Nothing at all.”

Suga was joking, maybe, a little, but his throat closes at Daichi’s words. His heart, his stupid, foolish heart skips beats.

The keeper of the merry-go-round makes the children get off the spinning platform so that the group waiting in line can hop on, and Daichi moves in closer to him.

“You want to go?”

Suga shakes his head. “No.”

“I’ll get on the real one someday. Until then I’m ok where I am.”

He takes a step away, then another. “More than ok.”

He turns back only to look at Daichi. “Though I’ve got to say…I’m kind of hungry.”

 

They grab some sandwiches at the closest stand and they eat them hidden behind a stunning oak tree. When Daichi gets some mayo on his chin Suga laughs and licks it all away.

He was stupid thinking he could just compartmentalize feelings this deep, that he could just manage to not let them affect him. He was stupid thinking many things but Daichi is right, he hasn’t ruined anything.

The sun is still shining on him, not a cloud in sight, and he has yet an entire day to spend all with Daichi. Only with Daichi.

And that’s pretty damn great.

 

 

*

 

The shadows in Suga’s eyes take time to be outshined by his smile, and even then they never fully dissipate. Daichi doesn’t expect them to, a matter this big can’t simply resolve itself, it can’t simply cease to touch Suga from one day to the other, but when Suga allows him to look the first thing Daichi comes to feel is warmth.

The warmth in Suga’s smile, the palpable joy at the way their hands fit perfectly into each other. It’s real, as real as Suga is, and it exists now within him the same way his nostalgia does.

“You still have a little…” he interjects as soon as Daichi is done with his sandwich and in a blink Daichi finds his lips on his, tender and warm. So, so much softer than Daichi could have ever imagined them to be.

Real.

Suga is smiling into the kiss and Daichi smiles back, till it stops being a kiss and turns into breathless laughter.

“Did you get it off?”

“What?”

“Whatever it is that was stuck on my face.”

“Oh, that. I lied just to kiss you some more.”

They move from behind the shadow of a tree and start walking again, around and around with no real destination. Until, that is, they don’t overhear a little girl gushing breathlessly to her mom about the baby goat she got to pet.

Suga stops by his side, rooted on the spot, and with wide, glittering eyes he asks the little girl about it.

“It’s a petting zoo!” she exclaims, even more excited than before faced with Suga’s own enthusiasm.

He squeezes Daichi’s hand, hard nearly to the point of pain. “There is a petting zoo here,” he echoes, breathy with awe and he’s beaming brighter than the sun itself.

Daichi is so in love with him it’s scary. “Yeah, I heard.”

Suga asks the kid where it is and the girl insists she and her mother go with them. “They’ll get lost, mama!”

Her mother acquiesces only before her puppy eyes and Daichi notices the way she pointedly looks away from his and Suga’s hands, joined in a way that leaves no questions to the nature of their relationship. Daichi decides to act just as clueless, for the sake of this day.

The petting zoo is small, but crowded with children and animals on every side. Suga’s steps turn into skips in the last few meters and he immediately jumps over the short fence to get to an adorable lamb.

“Oh my God, Daichi, look!” he coos, he points.

The lamb almost rushes to him and in the matter of a few seconds Suga is sitting on a tiny wooden stool with it bleating on his lap.

“Aw, aren’t you sweet? Daichi isn’t she sweet?”

Daichi laughs and agrees, yes of course this little lamb is the sweetest. She is nuzzling at Suga’s chest and her eyes open and close like she’s ready to take a nap on him.

Daichi can’t not take a picture. Or twelve.

The little girl who brought them here comes close too to pet the lamb, then she runs off to grab some carrots and fodder that the keepers are distributing at the centre of the zoo.

Had she never done that…

As soon as Suga starts feeding the little lamb the animals nearby all start crowding over him. First come the bunnies, they hop on their little legs and make a home at – and in some cases _on_ – Suga’s feet, they munch on his laces until Suga hands them two small carrots to share. Then come the baby goats, who hop everywhere and bleat and gently head-butt his back for food and attentions.

Last comes the only baby deer around and in all honesty, it’s like a scene from a movie.

It nuzzles Suga’s hand, licks it, and when the food is over it lays on its legs, its face firmly planted on Suga’s knee.

Following the animals many kids have gathered around him too and they coo and jump around and giggle to get to pet Bambi and feed the baby goats still harassing Suga.

“I’m never leaving ever, Daichi!” he stage-whispers at one point, half joking half dead serious.

Daichi shakes his head and snaps another photo. “I should have known letting you come here would end up being a bad idea.”

“You are like a modern days Snow White.”

Suga shows him the tongue and hugs the little lamb closer to his chest. Daichi, for his part, has to fight every single one of his instincts not to press a hand to his chest and sigh.

 

In the end though they do leave, and the sun is still shining above their heads.

The goats find other places to hop on to, including on each other. The deer is collected by one of the keepers for its afternoon feeding, Suga watches it latch onto its bottle almost with tears in his eyes and Daichi has no problem admitting he’s in no better shape. That’s really fucking cute, ok?

And the lamb…well, that one was tricky. Daichi had to take it in his arms and lift it off Suga so that the kids could pet it too. He’s not sure who was left more heartbroken, if the lamb or Suga.

“Lambs can’t grow into university apartments anyway,” Suga tries to reason as they walk away. “It wouldn’t be happy in the city.”

“It wouldn’t,” Daichi agrees and rubs Suga’s back in comfort.

“Besides, I doubt Onyx would like having to share me.”

“She would hate it indeed.”

“But that lamb was so cute!”

“It really was, Koushi.”

They pass a little wooden bench and Daichi jerks his chin at it. “But you know, if you miss it so much you could just sit on that bench and let me take a nap on your lap.”

“I promise I can be just as cuddly as baby sheep.”

It works. Suga takes one look at him and laughs, loud and unrestrained. “Oh my, Sawamura-san, that was quite the indecent proposal.”

A pause.

“But will you bleat?”

“Please don’t tell me you’re into that, Sugawara.”

They both start laughing so hard they have to hold on to each other not to fall.

 

They do the spinning cups next and together with them come two kids who, encouraged by Suga, ask Daichi to spin them ‘faster, faster, onii-san!’ at every turn.

As if those bloody cups don’t spin anyway, whether you pull on the steering wheel at the centre or not. But whatever, trying to reason with five years olds and a Sugawara Koushi who’s feeling mischievous is as productive as lecturing cats on their bad behavior.

So Daichi pulls and spins and strains each and every muscle in his arms and shoulders, while Suga does absolutely nothing but cackle.

The asshole.

The incredibly pretty, adorable asshole.

The reward he gets for his efforts, though, is quite something.

“Wow, you really are as cuddly as a lamb!” Suga tells him afterwards, Daichi’s head on his lap.

“Told you so.”

Suga’s fingers card through his hair, gentle, and slowly Daichi’s head stops spinning. He opens his eyes to find Suga staring at him, a lopsided smile on his face that has the bridge of his nose crinkle, and when he opens his mouth as well to say something – he’s not sure yet what – Suga presses a thumb on his lips.

“Let’s not,” he says and Daichi keeps quiet.

Under Suga’s touch he closes his eyes again, till the sky has turned a reddish sort of orange, signaling the end of the afternoon.

 

“No.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun!”

“No.”

Daichi stands, stone-faced, before the Ferris wheel. When Suga tries to drag him in line he doesn’t even budge. No. There is absolutely no way he’s going to get on that thing.

“Are you afraid of heights?” Suga asks him in a whisper after five minutes of this.

Daichi bristles at the assumption. “No, I’m not.”

Golden eyes narrow.

He elaborates. “It’s just…being so high up on a thing that could easily crumble. I don’t care for that.”

Suga looks at the wheel, white with rainbow colored cabins, lights upon steel creating shapes and plays of colors in the slowly darkening sky. “That’s pounds and pounds of steel though, Dai. Not exactly marzipan.”

“Steel can rust.”

“It says on the sign that this wheel was built less than a year ago.”

“Ah, so they are using us as guinea pigs!”

Next to him Suga’s shoulders start to shake and Daichi crosses his arms over his chest to hide the slump of his shoulders. Great. He’d been hoping it’d take a little longer than that for Suga to find out about his irrational fears but nope. First date outside, Ferris wheel.

Of course that was just his luck.

Warm breath breaks on his skin and suddenly Suga has hooked his chin on his shoulder. In front of everyone.

Daichi waits for whispered teasing that never comes.

“I hate clowns,” Suga says instead. “And I’m terrified at the idea of being buried. Alive or just in general.”

He circles Daichi’s frame with his arm. “We can go do something else if you don’t want.”

And Daichi realizes just how unfair he had been. Suga teases him only about things he knows Daichi won’t take to heart. Suga can be harsh sometimes, but he never insults anyone in a way that could hurt them.

He’s too kind for that.

Daichi looks at the wheel again, now still so the people inside can enjoy the view. “Why do you want to go anyway, it’s not like this thing does anything funny…”

Suga doesn’t say anything to that and Daichi, for his part, is too intent glaring at the hellish thing to notice the pink of his cheeks.

Slowly he takes the steps that separate him from the line of people waiting to get in.

“Are you sure?” Suga asks him, up until the moment the keeper of the wheel locks them in the cabin.

Daichi is very much _not_.

And it shows as soon as the wheel starts moving. Daichi jumps on his seat and immediately grabs the handle above his head with both hands. Then, when he notices how slow the thing is going, he lets it go again and clears his throat.

“I, um, I got startled, that’s all.”

Suga doesn’t say anything but his eyes soften in the dim lights of the cabin. “I know.”

Then, with a weird edge in his voice he adds “You don’t have to worry, Dai.”

He shifts in his seat, just enough so their knees are bumping together. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he says, inches away from Daichi’s lips, and as soon as the echo of his voice subsides he’s kissing him. The way he hasn’t been able to do since they came here, surrounded by people, surrounded by children.

Deep and slow, unrushed, and a little dirty. He licks into Daichi’s mouth, until he draws moans and whimpers from his lips, he teases him with his pace, with his fingers slipping suddenly underneath Daichi’s shirt.

_So this is why…_

“I hope this is still going to be worth it when this thing collapses on us,” Daichi mutters inside his mouth.

Suga smirks and underneath the impossibly long veil of his eyelashes his eyes are dancing. “Don’t you think it will be?” he asks and his legs are on either side of Daichi, straddling him.

His words a promise Daichi has every reason to believe in.

They kiss again and Daichi’s hands release the edge of the seat, rise to palm at the soft skin of Suga’s sides. His thumbs find sharp, lovely hipbones to trace, and when he presses with too much emphasis Suga whimpers against his mouth, bites hard at his bottom lip.

“Not nice, Sugawara,” Daichi tries to tell him but it gets lost between groans when Suga drags his hands up and down his torso.

From beneath his shirt they tease at his nipples, pinch them and trace them with a mixture of sadism and playfulness, then curl on his chest, still for long moments, before moving down again to draw on his abs.

“Oh boy, what did I do in my past life to deserve this?” Suga whispers in the crook of his neck and through the fog that clouds his judgment, slows down his thoughts, Daichi has absolutely no clue what he’s talking about.

But he knows he likes the way Suga is nibbling his earlobe, and really, everything else at this point is just superfluous.

Until, that is, the wheel stop. So sudden Suga nearly topples off of Daichi’s lap.

For a moment panic takes possession of Daichi. He looks around not really comprehending what he sees – is it for real? Is this damn thing collapsing? What the fuck is going on?

Then Suga cups his face in his warm hands and smiles. “We just reached the top, that’s all.”

What?

“Look.”

And Daichi  does.

Beneath them thousands and thousands of lights, a patchwork of yellows and reds, some greens, in a background of endless black. Cars speeding by just tiny spots Daichi could cover with his thumb.

Then…

“Now look up,” Suga tells him and the breath gets stolen from Daichi’s lungs.

Above them the sky is already a purple so dark it’s almost indistinguishable from black but far away, where skyscrapers can’t reach, far away on the hills the sun still reigns. A fiery, raging red the shade of blood it colors the horizon warm, turns the clouds pink and red and violet and orange.

Near it, the first star of vesper is already winking at them.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Suga breathes out, so quiet it’s almost reverent.

And Daichi understands.

Suga didn’t bring him here to kiss him where no one could disturb them. Suga wanted…Suga wanted him to see this.

Daichi looks away from the triumph of colors out of reach and watches him instead. His eyes, perfect and wide and so impossibly bright, are reflecting that one, lonely star. His skin is a canvas for the evening to color.

Daichi calls his name and kisses the last of sunrays off his lips.

 

It’s impossible to top a moment like that, - Daichi says this after every moment spent with Suga, - so they leave the amusement park soon after, the same way they’d arrived. Together, hand in hand, and smiling.

Suga’s smile alone could power up the city of Tokyo for the next thousand years it’s so bright and Daichi can’t even begin to describe just how beautiful it is, he doesn’t know words powerful enough anyway.

“Are you hungry?” he asks, just to fill the silence, but Suga shakes his head.

Yeah, Daichi isn’t either. The butterflies fluttering in his stomach – he’s admitting it now, they are butterflies – make him feel as though he’s participated to a royal banquet and not like he’s running on just a couple of sandwiches and some candy.

Still, he doesn’t want tonight to end just yet.

“Listen, Suga, I…”

His phone buzzes. After a moment, so does Suga’s.

They exchange a look and Suga’s smile turns even wider, so much so it nearly forces his eyes to close. The messages are from the kids.

Suga’s recites: ‘’suga-san we miss you! monday you need to stay to tell us how the song about the bear ends! love you’’

“The bear?”

“It’s just a song I made up about a bear who hates honey. Don’t make that face, it’s a good song!”

“I don’t doubt it.”

Daichi can’t dodge in time and Suga’s punch lands square on his gut. He doubles over, both from laughter and pain.

Suga has to read his text out loud, for Daichi is wheezing too hard to make any sense of it.

“We miss you, daddy,” he whispers in the middle of the empty street, “today mom took us to the mall and bought us a lot of new clothes, we’ll show them to you later. P.s Suga-san is staying the night on Monday. Love you.”

“Oh well, at least they had the courtesy to inform me you’re staying the night on Monday…”

Suga snickers at his indignation and takes him by the arm. “Look at it this way, you learned about it the same time I did.”

“Yeah but I’m the parent, they are supposed to ask me for permission first.”

With a side-step Suga moves in closer to him, his hips – his beautiful, curvy hips – bumping playfully on his. “Why, do you have any objections to me staying the night, Sawamura-san?”

His smile turns razor sharp, a teasing smirk that nearly has Daichi’s knees buckle. “N-no, of course not.”

“Good.”

A woman passes them by just as Suga stands on his tippy toes to press a hot, lingering kiss on Daichi’s cheek. The look of disgust she regards them with, Daichi doesn’t even notice it.

They reply to the kids, Suga sends them a vocal message as well, and when he concludes his little song with a tender ‘’I love you’’ Daichi’s heart skips a beat. Or maybe two, three.

Countless beats.

His body feels warm with the emotion gathering heavy inside his chest.

Because Suga loves his children. He does, he shows it every day.

And Daichi is lucky, he is so, so lucky he found him that day at a small cafè near the university. He’s so lucky he fell for him, _him_ out of the million people in Tokyo.

Careless he pulls Suga close – closer,- holds him tight to his chest. He hides his face in Suga’s hair and breathes in the comforting smell of him, of his skin. “I…”

He has no idea what it is he wants to say.

_Thank you?_

_For what? For being the way you are? For loving my children?_

No, he can’t just say that, it’s weird.

_I love you?_

_I love you._

“I…it’s…it’s too early to go home,” he changes at the last minute, with cars honking all around them, strangers passing by.

No, not like this. Not now.

Suga’s expression softens into something that looks too much like understanding. He presses a brief kiss on Daichi’s lips and suddenly his eyes are twinkling. “What do you say we go get us some nice, Italian gelato?”

Daichi says it’s an excellent idea.

 

Miss Tina takes one look at them, standing close but not too much, hands brushing against each other but not joined, and laughs. She just claps her hands in delight, throws her head back and laughs, so loud it bounces easily on the narrow walls of the ice-cream parlor.

Daichi blinks at her, then turns to look at Suga who…who is blushing to the roots of his hair.

Seriously, what…?

“What’s going on here? Is there some kind of joke I’m missing?”

Miss Tina smirks at him like the cat who finally caught the mouse and rests her elbow on the counter, eyes never leaving Suga’s. “See, kid. The magic of Bacio never fails.”

Oh yeah, that explains…absolutely nothing.

What does bacio have to do with anything? Isn’t that an ice-cream flavor?

“What?”

Suga’s lips curve into a timid smile before his confusion but it’s short-lived. Still red to the tips of his ears he tugs at Daichi’s shirt. “I think, um, I think Miss Tina knows.”

“Knows what?”

Suga huffs, as if it’s Daichi who’s being dumb and not him who is making no sense whatsoever. Then he whispers “About us,” in Daichi’s ear and everything is clear.

His cheeks heat up too, in sympathy. “B-but how?”

“Oh Dai-chi, you really didn’t think you were being subtle, did you?”

Miss Tina looks ready to start laughing again, and right in their faces at that. Her shoulders are already shaking with hilarity.

“But we’re, we’re just standing!”

Is their standing side by side couple-like? How can simply standing side by side be couple-like?

Is this some kind of sixth sense old Italian ladies have, detecting sexual tension from miles away?

“I…we…”

“Why don’t you come look at the flavors so you can actually order something, dear?”

“Yes, please.”

He steps closer to the display of flavors and almost immediately he notices that Suga doesn’t follow, the warmth he emanates dispersed in the air that now stands between them.

Miss Tina has noticed too. “Koushi-kun, don’t you want something too?”

“Of course.”

He’s looking down at the labels, the names, but Daichi knows he’s not really seeing them. Something in the way he carries himself has changed. He’s…closed off, rigid, hugging his middle like he’s almost trying to protect himself from a blow.

Daichi throws a look at Miss Tina and at once she starts muttering about a new flavor she’s working on and that she wants them to try, she disappears in the backroom of the store with a flounce.

Daichi watches the door fall shut and places a hand low on Suga’s back. “Hey, what…did something happen?”

And that seems like enough, because at his confusion Suga’s nerves almost melt away. “You don’t…? I thought…”

“I thought you didn’t want…people to know about us. That’s why you were acting weird.”

“Suga, you were acting weird too.”

“Oh.”

Suga brushes his hair away from his face and Daichi’s heart settles at the small dimple shyly finding its place in the corner of his mouth. “So you don’t mind?”

“That Miss Tina knows? Of course not.”

“Listen, I…I’m going to need some time to tell the kids-”

“I understand that.”

One look into Suga’s eyes and Daichi knows he does. Suga is much more understanding than Daichi deserves him to be. “So with them and Yurika we…we are going to have to be careful for a while, I’m sorry.”

“And with, like, the parents of Ayame and Kaede’s classmates but let’s be honest I don’t see why we would ever hang out with them…”

Suga lets out a breathy chuckle and that’s all the encouragement Daichi needs to move in even closer. He strokes Suga’s cheek with a thumb. “But with our friends, I…you are not some sort of dirty secret, Suga. You could never…I would never treat you like that.”

“I didn’t think you would I was just afraid that-”

“I know. I know.”

This is not going to be easy, but nothing ever is. Nothing that truly, really matters anyway.

Daichi’s thumb hooks beneath Suga’s chin and he takes Suga’s lips between his own. Kisses him slow, as careful as he can muster with a brain that’s clouded by their simple nearness.

I care about you, he wants to say.

I love you.

He rests his forehead on Suga’s instead.

“Aw, that’s more like it, boys.”

Of course Miss Tina chooses this exact moment to reappear. Suga and Daichi move away, but not too far apart and the blush Daichi catches coloring Suga’s cheeks is nothing short of delightful.

He gets embarrassed by the simplest things…

But when it’s time to heavily make out in a cabin ten thousand feet up in the air then he’s game. He’s so weird, so endearingly weird.

Daichi grins at him, at the excitement he shows when Miss Tina asks him if he wants to try her new chocolate-jalapeno flavor. He grins so hard, for so long, his entire face begins to ache.

It’s a good ache though, the best possible ache.

 

Daichi drives him home and Suga swings their arms together till they have reached his front door. He’s smiling, just looking at him and smiling and Daichi doesn’t want to say goodnight. He doesn’t want to spend the hours that separate tomorrow without him.

But from inside come voices, Oikawa, Daichi recognizes him immediately, and Onyx’s meows and there’s really nothing else he can do. So “Goodnight,” he says. “Tonight has been…”

_Perfect. Wonderful. Exactly what I dreamed of doing with you…_

“I know.”

Daichi blinks at Suga’s words, he snorts. “I haven’t even said anything yet.”

“You don’t need to,” Suga says back, and presses a soft, impalpable kiss on his lips.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Dai.”

“Y-yeah. See you, Koushi.”

Suga closes the door behind him and only then Daichi’s lungs begin to work again. Laughing breathless at the night sky he makes his way back home.

 

In the morning they go jogging together. Suga needs to study in the afternoon but waiting an entire day to see each other again felt too much, too unbearable.

Once the children get back they’ll return to brief, stolen moments and Daichi needs to make every second alone count. He needs to memorize the taste of Suga’s lips, so he can chase it on his own when he’s in bed all by himself, he has to learn the meaning of each sound Suga makes and discover his secret, sensitive spots - as many as he can, – memorize them as if they were his new alphabet.

He needs to, the same way he needs oxygen to live.

So when they are on the secluded trail that ends into the ginkgo trees forest Daichi pushes Suga under the shadows of a flowering redbud and kisses him till they are both weak in the knees, clinging to the lowest branches not to fall.

Lost as he is in his own head, in the feeling of Suga pressed so impossibly close to him he never notices the eyes watching them.

Lost as he is in his own head all that reaches coherence is a question, a simple question he already knows the answer to: …has he ever been this happy?


	30. Grace under pressure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stress and gestures.

“And so the bear helped the little bee get back to its hive. He had to stand on the tips of his hinder paws to reach it but he made it, and in the blink of an eye the bee was surrounded by its friends, who had been worried sick the entire time!”

Kaede cuddles closer in Suga’s arms and clings to the thin fabric of his shirt. His eyes open and close with sleep, he’s fighting it with all his four years old might just to hear the end of the story.

Suga stops to press a kiss on his hair and Daichi’s heart beats wildly in his ribcage, so fast, so loud he’s sure the entire neighborhood can hear it.

On the opposite end of the bed he fidgets with the blanket Kaede always insists on having near, even during the summer, when it’s too hot to sleep underneath it, and focuses on everything that is not the sight before his eyes. Everything that is not Suga lying in Kaede’s bed with both of Daichi’s children tucked safely in his arms. Everything but this, because this is just too much.

Too easy, it feels too right. It’s too good to be happening to them. To _him_.

“The bear looked at the other bees all buzzing happily around his tiny friend and smiled. When the bees tried to give him a jar of honey to thank him for his help he waved them off. ‘’It’s alright, he said, I was happy to’’. Plus he never liked honey. ‘’No offense, little fellas but it’s really not my taste!’’”

To him.

Two kids, a divorce. Fighting for custody, fighting to keep his job, fighting to try not to let the kids’ lives get too caught up in it, not to let their lives ruined by it. Fighting, fighting and fighting for months, for years, and now…now this.

Now there is this. Now there is Suga stroking his daughter’s hair, making his son talk and laugh with an easiness that never seemed possible, and wearing _that_ look in his eyes.

“So the bear got nothing for being nice?” Ayame asks in that moment, cheek pressed heavily on Suga’s shoulder. Just as invested and just as sleepy as her brother is.

Suga smiles at her and his dimples show, at the corners of his mouth, on his cheeks. “No, not really. But when the bees heard he wanted nothing in exchange they recognized the goodness in his heart and from that day on started quite an unlikely friendship.”

“The bear made a bed of leaves at the mighty oak’s feet and together with the bees he helped protect the hive from gluttonous bears for the rest of the summer. The bees, for their part, would attack in a swarm whoever tried to steal the bear’s food, or hurt him in any way.”

Ayame yawns and nods in almost approval. “That sounds like a good deal.”

“Doesn’t it? It’d be so cool to have a swarm of bees as your bodyguards.”

“Suga-san you’re so weird sometimes!”

“Why? What did I say?”

They giggle, soft under their breaths not to disturb Kaede and Daichi loves them so much his head is spinning with it.

“Hey?” Suga calls him, places a warm hand on his knee. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

It’s more than just alright. “Let’s get you in your bed now, Aya,” he says and it surprises him how sure his voice sounds.

Ayame doesn’t protest for once, but she locks her arms around Daichi’s neck and lets herself be lifted. Daichi presses a kiss on Kaede’s temple and waits by the door as Suga does the same.

Another kiss on the temple and one on his cheek, Suga smiles when Kaede scrunches his nose in his sleep and with careful fingers he covers him with the thin, linen sheet, he makes sure to turn on the little light by the nightstand.

He knows the quirks now, he’s learned even the smallest things about their routines, their habits. It’s like he’s always been exactly where he is now, by Daichi’s side, helping him raise these kids.

They tuck Ayame in together. Her sheets are not folded under the mattress because during the night she likes to kick them all away but there is a comfort in covering her up to her chin that Daichi is not sure he can explain. Must be parental instinct or something.

In any case Ayame lets them, she watches them fuss with a timid smile on her face and when Daichi meets her eyes she nuzzles the pillow, drowsy and sweet. His little princess.

“This is nice,” she says, looking from him to Suga.

Daichi doesn’t need to ask about it. He agrees, “It really is,” and kisses her forehead.

“Goodnight love.”

“Goodnight daddy.”

Suga kisses her on the tip of her nose. “Goodnight, my precious cabbage.”

She snorts. “Goodnight Suga-san.”

They close the door slowly behind them, almost reluctant, and grin at the soft ‘I love you’ that reaches through the dark of Ayame’s room. “We love you too,” they intone  and wait for the quiet chuckle that follows.

It’s lovely, and too soon deep breaths replace it, even with sleep. Suga looks up at him, through his long – impossibly long – eyelashes, hand still closed around the doorknob, and Daichi moves in closer. Chest pressed against his back he circles Suga’s frame with his arms, rests his hands steady on Suga’s stomach. He pulls until they are locked in an embrace that would be impossible for anyone to break and hides his face in the crook of Suga’s neck, his nose in Suga’s hair.

“Daichi?”

He shakes his head, he can’t talk right now, he just can’t.

Suga understands and covers his hands with his.

 

Daichi will sleep on the couch. It doesn’t seem fair, in a way, to sleep together with the kids in the next room, unaware of everything, unaware of them.

“It’s alright, Dai. I understand.” On Suga’s face is the easiest smile in the world, like it never occurred to him to do otherwise, but when Daichi makes to change the sheets Suga stops him with a hand around his wrist.

He says “don’t” and his eyes are burning.

Daichi stills with a thousand words stuck on his tongue. Three in particular that have his core thrumming. The new sheets fall from his hands over the edge of the drawer, just a little, and Daichi closes it without even noticing.

“I’m not tired yet,” Suga is telling him, and with a shared look they get changed. On opposite sides of the room, only half-turned toward each other they undress, needlessly slow, as if afraid that the rustling of fabric could shake them from this timeless daze, that turns all shapes blurry but for that of their bodies.

Daichi takes his T-shirt off and watches Suga do the same, from the corner of his eye he sees the sensual curve of Suga’s spine, the jutting shoulder blades, so pronounced they resemble clipped wings, and moles, moles, an endless scatter of moles.

Pale skin that’s almost as light as his hair, the glittering of scars.

His heart in his throat he blindly throws his sweatpants on a chair. Suga folds his messily on another.

“You have octopus underwear…” it comes out before Daichi can stop it.

But in his defense _Suga has octopus underwear on_.

Suga jumps, a kid caught by his parents with his hands in the cookie jar, and tugs at the hem of his boxer briefs. His tight, very tight boxer briefs that hug his ass like a dream. “Yeah, um, I have an entire collection of…of them. Underwear with animals on.”

Of course he does.

“That’s so….” – adorable – “so you.”

Suga huffs and pulls up his soft, yellow pajama pants, that, as loose as they sit on his waist, do nothing to hide the beautiful curve of his behind. Daichi is so blessed.

“You are not allowed to talk! You gave me a shrimp shirt as a birthday present, you are nothing but an enabler!”

It’s way too late for words like ‘enabler’, Daichi doesn’t have the presence of mind to keep up with that. “Mmm,” he replies, noncommittal.

“Also stop staring!”

To that though he does have an answer. “Absolutely not.”

Suga makes a show of rolling his eyes and turns his back to him, but the curve of his cheek is still visible, as is the shadow of a dimple. He’s smiling.

Daichi is too, now staring down at his ratty gym shorts, the ones he always sleeps in. He puts them on. “Why, you want to tell me you weren’t looking even a little bit?”

Somewhere on his left Suga huffs. “It’s not my fault you’re so stupidly fit,” he mutters under his breath, but not soft enough.

Daichi casually forgets to look around for a shirt to wear and steps in closer to him. “What was that, Koushi?”

Goosebumps break on Suga’s delicate nape and even as Daichi thumbs at them, feels the softness of Suga’s skin under his fingertips Suga still doesn’t turn to face him.

“I said, it’s not my fault you’re so stupidly big. It’s impossible not to look at you, you occupy half the room!”

Daichi has to bite his lip not to laugh. The kids are sleeping a wall away ad his laughter has never been the quietest. “That’s not quite what I heard…” he teases, but his high spirit dies soon as Suga throws a shirt over his head.

Freckles and moles and wonderfully soft skin are now covered in light, magenta fabric and that’s just a disgrace. Even though he recognizes all too well the shirt Suga has chosen to wear.

“Ugh, Daichi!”

More tugging of fabric and a pout on Suga’s lips Daichi can’t not kiss.

“You, um. Y-you got the wrong size,” Suga tells him as they separate, almost scolds him, and Daichi covers his mouth with his own again, in brief, soft kisses that aren’t meant to go anywhere.

They _can’t_ go anywhere, not tonight. Not with the kids so close.

His hands stop on Suga’s waist, narrow and bare, showing under a shirt that’s far too short. “No, I got it perfectly right.”

 

They lie sprawled on the couch for a good hour, not really watching ‘Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?’. Well, Daichi is not really watching, Suga apparently knows all the fricking answers.

“That was Cicero not Caesar. Caesar only wrote about war, lady!”

“That painting is permanently exhibited in Florence not at the Louvre.”

“That’s not what that word means!”

“Should I enter you, Sug? You seem like you could win a fortune.”

Suga glares down at him, peacefully resting his cheek on his stomach, and goes so far as to show him the tongue. “Don’t you dare. I hate being on camera.”

“Really? You take so many selfies…”

“Selfies to send to a friend are one thing but when people ask me to say something for a video I always get tongue-tied.”

“I never would have guessed.”

Daichi hides a smile in Suga’s stomach and without thinking he presses a kiss on the curve of his navel.

“S-stop.”

Hands tug the hem of the shirt down and when Daichi looks up to meet Suga’s eyes he finds his cheeks colored a bright crimson. His heart sinks as realization hits him, slowly, at once.

Suga is shy.

Daichi has just uncovered yet another of his carefully hidden insecurities.

He circles Suga’s waist with his arms and propped on his elbows he brings them face to face. He presses a kiss on the hinge of Suga’s jaw. “You can go get changed if you want,” he whispers in the shell of his ear, “borrow one of my shirts or something.”

“But for what it’s worth, I…I like you like this.”

It’s not the verb he wants to use, but it’s the one that fits better right now.

Suga’s blush deepens and his eyes stay fixed on the television screen. “The right answer is Tanzania,” he says. He makes no move to leave.

 

In the morning Daichi wakes him with a kiss on his shoulder and the smile that follows is something heavenly, something out of Daichi’s most heart-wrenching dreams. The kids barge into the room only moments after, just as Suga is sitting up on the bed, and they all have breakfast together, right there, leaving crumbs and jam stains all over the sheets.

Everything around them is full of light.

 

 

*

 

The forget-me-not sits on the windowsill, unbothered by the noise all around it it catches the timid sunrays that peek behind these late June clouds, its silhouette a grotesque shadow on the bedroom wall.

Suga looks at it and it almost irritates him, this picture perfect beauty. Forgotten the relief that came with knowing that no, Mrs. Devaux did not leave, now all it does is irk him. This plant.

Why this plant, if Mrs. Devaux never intended to say goodbye?

Why should he forget, and, most importantly, what?

He doesn’t know, he doesn’t understand and it irritates him. The pile of books on his desk reaches his chin and all he can seem to do is look past it to stare at a bloody plant.

Mrs. Devaux was supposed to come back days ago, but Suga has not once walked by her shop to see if it’s open. He was eager to at first, to apologize, to tell her about Daichi, but now he’s not sure. He’s not sure he should apologize, he’s not sure he wants to.

She just…she never called. She didn’t call to wish him a happy birthday, she didn’t let him know she was leaving, she never showed up at his party. She just left a card, a card and a plant that makes no sense.

Mon coeur. Forget-me-nots.

Looks and comments that always felt out of place. And Suga got lost in the aura of familiarity that seems to surround each of Mrs. Devaux’s looks, each of her gestures and words but now that they are apart, now that it’s been weeks since Suga last felt it – this inexplicable connection between them – all he is left with are questions.

Questions and Tooru’s voice echoing in his ears. “Stay away from my stuff, you filthy creature!”

Suga takes the edges of the book he’s been trying to read and shuts it closed with so much force the noise bounces off the walls. Outside his door everything falls quiet.

He stands, slowly he unlocks and turns the knob. Tooru is standing perfectly still in front of the couch, a finger in the air and hair a mess he’s now staring at Suga as if he’s his worst fear realized. Onyx has gone into hiding, Suga can see the tip of her tail peer out from underneath a pillow.

“Kou-chan…” Tooru starts but Suga stops him with a flick of his wrist.

Had it been any other time, three weeks ago, maybe, he would have already tried to figuratively eat the guy alive but Tooru is going through a rough time and Suga really doesn’t feel like screaming at him. Truth is, the only person he wants to scream at is himself. And possibly whoever invented university, exams, thesis, dissertations…

He passes a hand on his face and walks to the kitchen to get himself some more coffee. It’s the only thing that’s keeping him alive, it seems, coffee and Daichi’s kisses, the children’s laughter. God, why did he ever sign up for this? Why couldn’t he just stay content with his BA?

“Koushi?”

“Don’t you have class in half an hour?”

Tooru takes one look at the clock and jumps nearly out of his skin. In a whirlwind he collects his books, grabs his gym bag, his phone, then with a very quiet goodbye he leaves. Suga stares after him then takes in the silence with a sigh.

What does Tooru need the gym bag for in an engineering class?

In the past week Suga has caught sight of him only at dinner time, then late in the night when he still curls around Suga to sleep. Not every night but almost.

That’s Tooru’s coping mechanism, overworking himself in the gym. Practice till his hands are on fire from all the balls he’s spiked, till his breath comes in labored pants and his knees are close to giving out.

The last time Suga had tried to stop him he’d nearly received a backhand to his face, nearly, then Tooru had come to his senses, come to realize just who was standing before him, and held him so tight in his arms he’d nearly cracked his ribs.

“It’s you, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

Now all Suga does is sneak analgesic cream and knee wraps in his bag, sandwiches, and time his phone so it’ll ring when it’s time for lunch. Hold him close at night.

More than that Tooru wouldn’t accept.

And to think Suga nearly snapped at him because of a stupid thesis. Because of a stupid plant.

Damn it.

“Suga-san?”

A hand closes on his shoulder and Suga finds Taka frowning down at him, concerned and knowing. “I need to go to the city to retire a book,” he says after moments of awkward silence.

“Do you want to come with?”

Suga looks at the faint clouds outside, the leaves on the branches completely still under the summer heat and nods before he realizes he’s moving. “Yeah, let’s get out of here.”

 

They hurry to take the train but once they are in the city a sort of lazy calmness dawns on them. The still, sticky air weighs on their feet, the scorching asphalt seems to melt under them and coil around their ankles, forcing their steps to slow into an almost drag.

They circle the park – the same park where he and Daichi were kissing in just days ago –as if in slow-motion and still after ten minutes their breathing is labored. They watch the people rush by them, irritated by the heat and sweaty, and share relieved looks for this morning of unrushed peace.

“How’s the thesis going?”

“Well, your exams?”

Their answers, as their questions, take eons to come out and soon they stop making the effort. Talking was never an important aspect of their friendship anyway.

One of Taka’s friends meets them down his building to give Taka the book he needs to finish the essay and Suga silently asks himself just how the heck can a university student afford a place in this part of the city. He could live with eleven other people and it’d still make no sense to Suga, what they share in rent eleven people still lose it for food.

“His father is the owner of a big chain of supermarkets,” Taka tells him as they are walking away. Clearly Suga wasn’t being as subtle as he thought checking the entrance of the building through the glass doors.

But seriously now these people have a doorkeeper dressed in a uniform. As if this were a fancy hotel in the middle of Manhattan.

“I hate rich people.”

Taka hides a laugh behind his book but he pats Suga’s shoulder in something that feels much like sympathy. His mother is a seamstress, after all, and his father is an accountant, not exactly upper class like many of the students at Meiji.

Who, apparently, can afford to live in historical buildings in the inner city in addition to paying for tuition and living necessities and books…

“Do you think your friend would mind if I were to sleep on his floor once I’ve graduated? I will pay him back by badly doing housework for him…”

He means it as a joke of course but next to him Taka freezes.

“I…I had forgotten.”

Suga looks back to him, standing perfectly still on the busy sidewalk, and grabs his hand to keep him moving. “Forgotten what?”

“That you are leaving in less than two months.”

_Oh._

Yeah.

“I’ve been trying to forget it myself,” Suga admits, just as softly in the ruckus of lunch time. The thought of leaving that shitty apartment with those shitty, shitty pipes and paper thin walls is nothing but a relief, but leaving the people inside it…that’s a whole other story.

It’s the closest to torture Suga has ever experienced.

There is a pile of newspapers by his desk, all folded to the apartment ads page. Some have circles drawn in red crayon around them but Suga still hasn’t gathered the courage to visit any of the places that could interest him.

The past few years Suga has come to love Taka’s quiet support, his unexpected mischievous strikes and reassuring presence. Their adventures in the kitchen and the whispered talks on the reclining chairs in the garden. He’s brought balance in the apartment, has acted as mediator in his and Tooru’s rare but stubbornly draining fights and Suga is going to miss him like crazy.

And Tooru…he doesn’t know how he’s going to manage without him. He materially doesn’t, because since he left Miyagi Tooru has been the constant presence in his crazy, big city life. Roommates since the first day of university, eighteen and scared and too proud to admit it.

Taka lets out a soft snort and only then Suga realizes he’s been crushing his hand in a deathly grip. “Oh shoot, I’m sorry…”

“It’s alright.”

Silence falls again but now it sits heavy between them, uncomfortable with the nostalgia that’s creeping slowly but leisurely inside their chests. For the entire perimeter of the park they never let each other go and with each wave of sadness that hits them they cling, pushing past it together.

It’s only outside the gates that they are forced apart by an unexpected force.

A giant, furry force.

For a moment Suga fears the duck. But then again ducks don’t have fur, and also they don’t drool on poor strangers’ faces.

“Wha-?”

“Daisy, don’t!”

Too late, Suga is already on the ground. “Oh my God!”

It takes a moment or two for Suga to fully comprehend what’s happening but apparently a dog, a huge brown dog called Daisy decided out of nowhere to slip away from its owner’s grip and launch itself at Suga and is now pinning him down on the filthy asphalt and licking his face.

Suga tries to push it away to get a look at it and melts when he meets a pair of sweet, round brown eyes. “Aaaww, hello dear!”

The sound of his voice only causes more licks and gentle whines to occur.

“I’m so, so sorry, I don’t know what came over her!” Daisy’s owner has finally made his way to them and is trying valiantly to push her off him.

“It’s fine, I love dogs!”

Understatement of the century but Daisy wags her tail even harder, as if she’s somehow understood, and her furry bottom is wiggling too along with it. Suga is in love.

Taka helps Suga up then kneels down to take Daisy’s leash, that is dragging sadly on the asphalt all covered in dust. He hands it to Stranger-san and…and time seems to stop for a moment.

Taka’s fingers brush against the man’s and immediately he flinches apart, cheeks coloring a bright red.

Oh-oh.

Suga looks at the man standing awkwardly in front of him. Tall, almost as tall as Taka, with long, brown hair collected in a low ponytail and a short-cropped beard, he looks nearly as terrifying as Taka does – to strangers – with his downturned, sunken eyes and imposing figure. But then, Suga squints against the sun and notices he’s blushing too.

The man is looking at Taka and blushing.

Daisy barks happily at the three of them and the poor guy nearly jumps out of his skin. “I’m sorry,” he stammers again, “I’m so sorry, are you alright?”

Suga beams at him, he can’t help it. “I’m more than fine. Your dog is a cutie!”

Stranger-san smiles a shy smile at him – oh, he’s not bad-looking at all! – then throws another look at Taka, who hasn’t uttered a single word since. “I’m, um…”

“Azumane! Get a move on or we are going to be late!”

Another tall figure calls from the other side of the road and Stranger-san – Azumane – sighs. “I need to…well, um, goodbye.”

And with a last look at Taka and a gentle tug on Daisy’s leash he leaves.

“We should go too, Suga-san.” It’s Taka now, eyes fixed straight ahead and a nervous curve to his mouth.

He’s still blushing.

They have walked past four blocks when Suga finally reaches his limit. “That guy was looking at you, Taka!” he breathes out in a sudden, excited frenzy.

A muscle in Taka’s jaw twitches. “Was he?”

“Yes, Taka, absolutely!”

“And what should I do about it?” His voice comes out in a whisper but it’s razor-sharp.

So unexpected it makes Suga flinch. “Taka, I…”

Seriously though, what should he do? Run after a complete stranger and ask him for his number? Call every Azumane in Tokyo hoping to recognize his voice? ‘’Yes, excuse me, I’m looking for an Azumane with long, dark hair and a beard. Also he has a huge dog named Daisy, no chance one of your grandchildren matches the description, sir?’’

“Sorry.”

He got so excited, and he knows why. Because this never happens to Taka. Because only weeks ago Taka was pining after a guy who had been taken all along. Taka knows this too, he knows just why Suga got so excited.

Fuck, he hasn’t done a single thing right today.

First he made no relevant progress memorizing his thesis, then he nearly snapped at Tooru. And now this.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

Be the asshole friend who tries to play matchmaker now that he has finally found someone. What a complete douche.

“It’s alright, just…let’s not talk about it.”

Suga nods and does as he’s told.

By the time they’ve reached an all too familiar road his mood has effectively reached the soles of his shoes, so of course he nearly trips over a display of flowers he hadn’t noticed to masterfully continue the trend of awfulness that is this day.

Taka grabs him just in time before Suga can break his nose on the asphalt but the sharp edge of a long, rectangular clay vase is still digging right into the flesh of his calf.

“Fucking sh-”

Then he catches sight of a familiar plant of blue peonies. It’s resting on the top shelf inside the store, exactly in the same spot Suga remembers arranging it months ago and…and he freezes.

“Do you want to go inside, Suga-san?” Taka asks after moments – minutes? – of stillness, of silence, he sounds confused.

Of course he does. Suga never told him about Mrs. Devaux. In fact now that he thinks about it he never talked about her, with anybody. Not with him, not with Tooru, not even with his father.

It just never came up.

Inside Mrs. Devaux is talking with a client, smiling widely and moving her hands in time with her explanation. She hasn’t noticed him.

Suga takes a step away. “No. No, I…let’s go.”

And they keep walking, in silence, Suga’s heart is in his throat.

As soon as his bedroom door is closed shut behind him he fishes his phone from his pocket and dials a number.

Daichi answers on the second ring. “Hey.”

He’s smiling, Suga can tell.

“What’s up, Sug?”

Suga stares at his desk, the piles of books that threaten to bend it in halves, the pictures almost completely hidden behind them. The photo album is still in the third drawer, still untouched.

“Nothing, I just wanted to hear your voice.”

On days like this the sound of Daichi’s voice is the only thing that keeps him sane.

 

 

*

 

Suga is tired.

Daichi watches him every day, - he’s just too beautiful for Daichi’s eyes not to fall on him when they are in a room together – and the tension in his shoulders stands out more and more in a stark contrast to the smiles he gives the children, or to him.

It wasn’t there the week-end they spent together, and it seems to almost melt away in the few moments they have to themselves or whenever the kids are begging for his attention.

But then the kids will fall quiet in front of a cartoon, or Daichi will have to take a call that forces their lips apart and suddenly it’s there again. The crease between his brows, the pinch of his mouth.

On a quiet evening he asks about it, while they are both still sniffling from all the onions they had to chop for dinner he wipes his hands on Suga’s apron – Suga tries to protest till he remembers he hates this apron, then he just lets him – and says “What’s going on?”.

Casual, a roundabout way that has more than one simple answer.

“What do you mean?”

Suga is not tense now. In Daichi’s arms he keeps washing his hands, he throws half a smile behind his shoulders. “You seem to like this a lot,” he says and with a look to the semi-closed kitchen door he leans on Daichi’s chest.

“What? You? Well yeah, what gave me away?”

“Not me, you idiot! I meant this hug thing you do from behind.”

Daichi got it the first time, he just likes it when Suga blushes. “It puts me in a very good spot,” is all he answers with then, and to prove his point he presses a kiss on the sensitive skin behind Suga’s ear.

“Idiot,” Suga mutters again but he’s shivering.

Daichi tightens his hold on him. “Seriously you…you seem tense. Not now really but in general. Is there something wrong?”

And Suga sighs. “I’m just stressed, that’s all. With school, you know?”

That’s not all but Daichi can wait.

“Yeah. Alright.”

Daichi will wait. He doesn’t let Suga go, close as he is to breaking more of his walls down he kisses his skin one more time and nods in the crook of his neck. In the other room the children laugh.

 

 

*

 

The forget-me-not moves. From the windowsill now it sits in a corner of the room, where Suga is not forced to look at it as soon as he wakes.

Still, Suga’s eyes always seem to find it.

 

 

*

 

“Are you sure you can?”

“Yes, Daichi, I told you. I was going to come down for summer vacation anyway, getting there a little earlier doesn’t cost me anything.”

Daichi covers the phone with a hand so his sighing in relief won’t become static in his mother’s ear and briefly punches the air in his office. One thing is done.

“But is Koushi-kun alright?”

“Yeah, don’t worry, ma. He’s just really busy, that’s all. He’s defending his thesis in less than two months and he’s, well, he’s a little stressed. I don’t want him to spread himself too thin…”

_I just hope Suga will let me. Let me take care of him, for once._

_Let me care for him._

On the other end of the line his mother chuckles, so soft it’s almost a sigh. “You are a good kid, Dai.”

Daichi laughs too. “Hardly a kid anymore but thanks, I guess.”

“You’ll always be my baby, that’s just how it is.”

“I know, I know.”

He’s a parent too, after all. His eyes land on his computer screen, on his children smiling back at him, dressed in yukatas and with cotton candy stuck to their cheeks.

Yeah, he understands all too well. It feels like yesterday when he first held them in his arms, all wrinkly and red in the faces, so tiny he was afraid he could break them and now…now they go to school, they have personalities that are larger than life – and in Ayame’s case, louder too. They can read, they have a smartass answer to everything, they sass him.

The last one he partly blames it on Suga too. They weren’t quite as quick to tease him before _he_ came along.

But then again, they also weren’t half as happy.

“You’ve been quiet for a long time now, dear.”

“Sorry, I was just thinking.”

“What about?”

Near his reading lamp he had a new picture printed and framed, and when he first saw it Ennoshita patted Daichi on the arm in what felt a lot like congratulations. It’s a close-up of Suga’s face, that night at the amusement park. He’s smiling at Daichi, a little crooked and so, so lovely, and reflected on his face the lights coming from the Ferris wheel make him glow. His eyes are soft with happiness.

“I’m crazy about him, mom.”

“I know you are, baby. I know you are.”

If she could his mother would he holding him right now, squeezing him impossibly tight to her chest.

“So you’ll come?”

“The time to organize a few things and buy the train ticket and I’m there.”

Daichi thumbs at the mole beneath Suga’s eye and smiles. “Thank you.”

“Don’t even say it.”

 

 

*

 

Fukunaga-san reaches the concluding line of his thesis and smiles. “This is it,” he says.

He takes off his reading glasses and slowly he places them at the perfect center of his desk, right in front of him. Suga focuses on the light catching the lenses and tries not to give away the fact that he’s not breathing.

“It’s excellent, Suga-kun,” he adds.

And then, “I’m proud of you.”

Suga folds on himself, in the squeaky wooden chair that sits across from Fukunaga-san, and his forehead comes in touch with the desk. “So now all I have to do is learn it,” he jokes, he can’t help the sarcasm.

Fukunaga-san snorts. “Basically. And we need to prepare you for the questions my colleagues are inevitably going to ask you.”

“Yeah. Of course. How could I forget.”

He’s happy, really he is. He’s happy that, after months of work, of research and editing Fukunaga-san is finally satisfied with everything he’s done, he’s happy that at least this one thing is over with.

But for everything he manages to finish it seems ten more things – ten more chores, ten more challenges – appear, pile up before his eyes like bricks to form a wall.

“We are almost there, Suga-kun,” Fukunaga-san tells him by the door, before shaking his hand and sending him on his way.

The exact same words he’d said weeks ago in that coffee shop, the same words he’s been saying for the good part of these last  – endless - months.

He’s almost there, but not quite. He is done writing, but now he has to memorize names and dates and resources and the title of each book he’s consulted, books so obscure they’d been left molding for half a century on a dusty shelf. Not to mention he has to start looking for an apartment, for a job with which to pay for aforementioned apartment and now he kind of wants to cry.

He makes his way home fast and Onyx jumps in his arms as soon as the door’s opened. “You’ll come with me, right hon? Even if I’m left on the streets you’ll stay with me, won’t you?”

Onyx meows and rubs her fluffy face hard on his cheek.

“Thank you, boo.”

He throws himself on the couch, shoes still on, and sends a quick text to his father.

‘thesis got approved, love you.’

Quick and essential, the way his father likes.

Suga had tried calling him on his way here but after three rings the answering machine had replied. When it’s like this it can only mean his father is in the middle of a job, or rather a piece, and Suga knows better than to disturb him then.

Besides, now that he thinks about it maybe it’s better this way. His father would have known immediately that there’s something wrong, from the tone of Suga’s voice or the pattern of his breath or whatever other unsettling clue his father uses to read him so well he would have understood, and he would have asked.

He would have worried, and all for nothing because Suga is just being a giant baby right now.

Onyx looks at him with her bright, yellow eyes and licks his chin. Well at least she doesn’t care whether he’s acting childish or not, she still loves him.

This comforting thought hasn’t even had the time to take roots in his brain that the sound of a slamming door has them both rolling off the couch in shock.

It’s Tooru, of course it is. Taka would never make that much noise.

He walks past them without seeing them, muttering under his breath and cursing, something about stupid coaches not letting him practice in peace. He throws his gym bag in a corner of the living room, something Tooru never does, and slams his bedroom door shut.

His coach must have caught him practicing by himself again and told him to go get some rest. After eight years on the team that man knows better than to leave Tooru alone to break himself to pieces.

Suga sighs and gently moves Onyx off of him. When he knocks on Tooru’s door Tooru takes a moment too long to respond.

“Kou-chan?”

Indeed, he hadn’t noticed Suga there before. Tooru never acts like this where he knows people can see him.

“Yes, it’s me. Are you alright?”

“Fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, just…I think I’m going to get some sleep.”

_I don’t need you right now. Back off._

In two months Tooru won’t have him at all. Not so close, not just a door away. “Ok then. Call me if you need me.”

No answer comes from the other side.

 

For days it stays completely silent.

Suga wakes, he studies. Picks up the kids, carefully avoiding the street that gives to Mrs. Devaux’s shop, and spends a few – too few – blissful hours with them. With Daichi. He kisses him, hidden in the shadows of the laundry room, and says goodbye too fast. He eats, he studies till his eyes begin to close of their own accord, then he grants himself a few hours of sleep.

When it’s morning the cycle starts again, always the same, exhausting.

Until a Thursday comes where he finally says too much.

“He had no right to take back my keys. I’m the captain of the team, how the hell am I supposed to access the gym when nobody is there? What if I forget something in the locker room?”

“Maybe it’s better this way, Tooru.”

Silence falls at the kitchen table and at once Suga knows he’s made a mistake.

“Oh really, Suga. Care to tell me why you think that?” There is a lazy smile on Tooru’s lips but his eyes are dark with anger. And Suga just gave him a new target to unleash it against.

Himself.

“You know why, Tooru.”

Suga has nothing to object to that. Better him than Tooru’s coach, his professors, his friends who are not friends enough to know this side of him.

“You overwork yourself when you’re upset. You always do, and if you keep this up you could get seriously hurt.”

“So you are all just worried about me, is what you’re saying.”

It’s the truth, but Tooru doesn’t declare it as such.

“Of course we are. What do you think? That your coach just likes to mess with you? That Taka and I constantly ask you if you’re alright because we are annoying busybodies in search of things to gossip about with the loud dudebros that live down the road?”

Tooru says nothing to that, his face might as well be a mask of painted cardboard for all it lets out.

Suga leans across the table and squeezes his hand in his. “Tooru, please. Just…just talk to me. Let me help.”

And that too is nothing but another mistake.

“Help? Help with what?”

Tooru moves away from him, in a flash he stands, so sudden his chair falls to the ground, and looks Suga up and down. With scorn, the way he’s never looked at Suga before.

A slap in the face would have hurt less.

“Help with what, Refreshing-kun? With my poor, broken heart?”

 “Hajime is gone, get it? We broke up, that’s it. Nothing new about that, and nothing you can fix anyway. Or do you think that, since you managed to pick up a daddy while you were on the job, you’ve somehow turned into some sort of relationship guru?”

“Oikawa-san!”

This is Taka yelling. He’s standing too now, by Suga’s side, and his cheeks are flushed with anger. “You are going too far,” he adds after a while, a quiet hiss.

“Why? It’s not like what I said was a lie.”

“That’s not the point!”

“Taka, don’t.”

Suga stands too, finally, and he feels so small, so insignificant in this endless space. It only takes four steps for him to reach Tooru, but if they’d been four-hundred he’s sure he wouldn’t have felt all this tired.

“I know what you’re trying to do.”

_Push me away so I’ll be too angry to worry. As if that’s ever worked before._

“You do, uh?”

Tooru is smirking, and it’s ugly. Almost an oxymoron, Tooru and ugly in the same sentence. “I do, so just stop.”

“You’ve always known me too well, Kou-chan.”

His forehead comes to rest gently on Suga’s. “So you’d think you would have learned by now, when I want to be left alone.”

His words echo, bounce off every wall as he moves away one more time. One last time. “But I guess all I can do is wait another two months for that to happen.”

And with that he leaves. He ignores Suga asking him where he’s going, he ignores Taka calling his name. He saw the newspapers in Suga’s room, that’s why.

That’s why he stopped coming to him at night.

Suga waits for Taka to leave too, - for class or work Suga doesn’t remember what it is today, - then he does the same. What reason does he have anyway, to stay here, in this stupid, shitty apartment with shitty, shitty pipes now that it’s empty? In a daze he takes his bag, a few books, his keys and he walks to the only place that still makes a shred of sense.

 

“Suga-chan! Ryuu, look, it’s Suga-chan!”

“Yeah, I saw him, Noyassan!”

Tanaka and Nishinoya welcome him with warm, too tight hugs and cheers, as if he were the queen of England or something, a movie star or a volleyball player. It’s nice, or it would be nice if only he had it in him to smile at their obvious joy.

“How are you guys?” he asks, to be polite, because they are nice.

They beam at him. “Much better now that you’re here that’s for sure!” Nishinoya sing-songs before finally letting him go.

His enthusiasm dims as soon as their eyes meet. “Suga-chan are _you_ alright?”

He nods, he doesn’t even want to think about how he must look right now for these two to notice that he’s not quite himself. “Yes, fine, I just…wanted to see Daichi.”

“Of course.”

“Should we call him down?”

They flank him, the same way they did the first time they met and when Suga shakes his head at the offer they walk him straight to the elevator.

“What floor is it?”

“Eleventh.”

“We could come with you, Suga-chan.”

“No that won’t be necessary.”

They wait with him though, till the elevator doors open before him, their hands gentle on his back. “Thanks, you guys,” he says and they shrug like it’s nothing, just their duty.

Suga knows it isn’t. He attempts a real smile just for them as the doors begin to close and it’s enough for them to grin back.

Daichi is outside his office talking to Inoue-san when he spots him. One moment he’s explaining something to her and his assistant, a serious scowl on his face, and the next he’s looking up, attracted by whatever force that always needs them close,  and smiling in that wide, goofy way  of his that Suga loves with all his heart.

“Koushi!” he calls, he makes his way to him. “What are you doing here?”

He doesn’t wait for him to answer though, mindless of the company, of the people walking by, he’s already kissing him as soon as they are close enough to touch. It’s brief, just a soft meeting of lips, and Daichi’s hand, tender, cupping Suga’s cheek.

“Hey,” he says, eyes fixed only in Suga’s and Suga is torn for the first time today between the need to cry and the sudden, unexpected, marvelous want to laugh.

“Hey.”

A pointed cough behind them and Daichi’s hand flies to the back of his neck. “Um, yeah, so…you remember Suga, right?”

“Vividly,” is what Daichi’s assistant comments, and he looks like he’s moments away from bursting out laughing in front of them all.

Inoue-san greets Suga with a brief nod. “It’s nice to see you again, Suga-kun,” she says and although awkward – how could it not be, given the situation – it doesn’t sound like a lie.

“Likewise, Inoue-san.”

Suga is not lying either.

A few minutes and more incomprehensible legal terms later Inoue-san leaves, glorious, auburn hair catching every light in the hallway and sensual hips swaying with each step she takes. Suga can’t help but stare and fidget with the hem of his plain, unflattering over-sized T-shirt.

When he turns though, he finds Daichi looking at him. At him, only at him.

“What are you doing here?” he asks again and with the smile he’s still wearing on his face he looks so much like an overexcited puppy.

Only now, now that the feeling of Daichi’s lips on his has faded, and with it the instant joy that comes from simply being near him, the words Tooru had said to him only minutes before, the stress of today and of yesterday, and of the day before all crash on to him, so sudden they take his breath away.

“I, um, I thought we could have…lunch together?”

Daichi’s smile falters and he looks down at his watch. “I still have an hour before lunch break,” he says. He says it kindly, but Suga still takes a step away.

He’s so stupid. What made him think he could just barge in here, catch Daichi in the middle of work and force him to pay attention to his stupid, stupid problems. “You are right, you are right. I…I don’t know what came over me,” he says, he tries to laugh at his own dizziness “I’ll just go then.”

Daichi has a hand around his wrist before he can move any further away. Now all Suga reads in his eyes is worry.

“Ennoshita?”

“Yes, sir!” From the over-formal tone it’s clear the guy is trying not to give away the fact that he’s been listening to everything they’ve said.

Daichi doesn’t seem to care one bit. “Call me first if anyone wants to see me, and unless it’s Shimizu-san or Watanabe-sensei himself tell them I’m busy and that I’ll talk to them later.”

“No, Daichi, it’s not necess-”

“Yes it is. You got it, Ennoshita?”

“Yes, sir.”

And with that Daichi closes his office door behind them.

Suga leans heavily against it and laughs. “I made a fool of myself in front of your assistant,” he says, he doesn’t know why, why he cares, why it’s so important.

“He writes love e-mails to his boyfriend when he thinks I’m not looking, he’s in no position to judge anybody.” It’s a joke but Daichi is not smiling.

“Koushi…”

He walks in closer, till they are only a breath apart, and cups Suga’s face in both his hands. “What happened?”

Too much, too much happened all at once, when all Suga wanted was to be happy with him.

“Can you hold me?” he asks, a question instead of an answer, a request that is childish and needy and so, so out of place. Daichi doesn’t hesitate a second.

He closes his arms around Suga and slowly he pulls him close, tight against him. Cheek on cheek they begin to sway and in a breath Suga tells him everything.

 

“You have a picture of me.”

They are sitting now, in Daichi’s stuffed office chair, Suga more on Daichi’s lap and with warm arms still comforting, steady around him.

Daichi hums in the crook of his neck. “Yeah,” a kiss on his jaw, “I like to look at you.”

“Good to know.”

So Suga lets him. Together they move the chair so it’s turning, slowly from one side to the other, rocking them to peace, and they search each other’s eyes in silence.

Daichi didn’t say much while Suga was venting his way through the day, nothing much but for firm reassurances, - “you are going to be alright,” “do you really think I’d let you and Onyx go live under a bridge?” “with that brain of yours you can do anything” – that only he could make sound true, not pleasantries or clichés, but matter-of-fact realities. He understood that what Suga needed in that moment was to talk, to put himself out there and try to make sense of this whirlwind of thoughts and duties and hurt.

Now though, now that Suga is calm once again he can’t refrain from saying what he really thinks. “I wish,” he mutters, with his fingers in Suga’s hair, “I wish you didn’t feel the need to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

“You are one to talk, Dai.”

“It’s normal that I do that where my children are concerned but you…it’s not your duty to fix your friends’ lives. Or…or feel guilty for your own happiness.”

His words break a path to Suga’s chest and he lowers his eyes, turns into Daichi’s touch, in the palm warming his cheeks. “It’s easier said than done.”

“I know it is.”

Suga kisses the thumb tracing the shape of his mouth. Daichi shivers under him, against him, but his gaze never wavers.

“Do you still have your keys to my house?” he asks after long moments of silence.

Suga nods. “Yeah, they are…they’re in my bag.”

“Can you get them for me?”

He does and immediately Daichi tugs him back on his lap. He plays with the keys, makes them spin around his finger by the large key ring, then he gives them to Suga once again.

“These are the keys to my house,” he says, smiling at the perplexity painted on Suga’s face. “I want you to use them whenever you want.”

“Whether or not there is someone else inside, if…if you need time to yourself, or you need some place quiet to study or…I don’t know, take a nap in peace…they are yours to do whatever.”

“Ok?” he adds after minutes where all Suga has done is stare. “Koushi?”

Suga shushes him with a finger on his lips, then, when Daichi too has fallen quiet, he kisses him deep, slow. Till they are both panting for air.

Of all the nasty words Tooru said to him, those about Daichi were the only ones he couldn’t take to heart. Because this, this between them is the only thing Suga knows to be real.

 

 

*

 

Daichi should have seen it coming. All along he should have, and done everything in his power not to give an inch to the man standing next to him. Show him that everything, everything he’s dared to assume about Suga, and him, and what’s between them, is wrong.

And it is, it is wrong. Daichi knows.

But does it really matter if he’s the only one to?

“So, do you deny it, Sawamura-san? Not that it would matter much if you did, of course, since I saw you quite clearly in the park but-”

“No. No I don’t deny it.”

_Why should I?_

Ayame stops one last time by the school gate to wave at him, a wide smile on her face. Daichi waves back, with a weight that settles heavily on his chest.

_This, this is why._

Ayame. Kaede. He can’t…he can’t let them find out this way.

“What do you want, Nobu-san?”

Nobu-san turns toward him, the children have now all hurried inside, and fixes the glasses on his nose. Daichi wishes he could punch them off of him.

“Nothing, Sawamura-san, I want absolutely nothing from you.”

“Then what-”

“I was just surprised, is all. By the fact that a man so…wholesome and respectable,” he sneers, he spits the word out like it were rotten fruit, “such as yourself would stoop so low as to fuck his children’s nanny.”

Daichi flinches at the word, the crassness with which it’s spoken, and Nobu-san’s eyes light up in triumph.

“It’s not…” Daichi tries to say, “it’s not like that.”

“It isn’t? So what exactly were you looking for in Sugawara-kun’s mouth?”

Around the handle of his briefcase Daichi’s hand begins to shake.

“Don’t get me wrong, Sawamura-san, I’m not blaming you. It would be impossible for me to deny that your…your caretaker possesses quite a lot of, um, _appreciable_ qualities.”

“If I had been in your shoes I’m not sure I would have been able to resist-”

“So what,” Daichi starts, booming, his voice too shaking with anger, with fear, then he deflates. After all he’s not the one giving out the cards, the game is not being played according to his rules. He tries again, quieter “Why did you trouble yourself to inform me of what you saw?”

Nobu-san smiles. “Isn’t it obvious, Sawamura-san? Why, I just wanted to see your face.”

And Daichi realizes: that’s all there is. Nobu-san wanted to have the upper hand, for once. After all the times Daichi listened with half a ear to his stories, excused himself out of a conversation that had drawn his patience thin, Nobu-san wanted to see him humiliated. Him judged, him smaller.

Petty, grown-ups pride.

Daichi turns to face Nobu-san, there in his daughter’s school yard, and lets him bask in it. The superiority, the smugness. All his ego needs, if only that will spare the kids and Suga the same humiliation.

He takes a step toward Nobu-san and his mouth doesn’t curve when he notices the step back the man takes before him. He bows to Nobu-san and suddenly he’s not shaking anymore, he’s not angry if not at himself.

“W-what are you doing, Sawamura-san?”

Daichi straightens again and meets Nobu-san eyes. “I’m asking you to please keep what you saw to yourself.”

“From one father to the other I’m begging you to spare my children this humiliation. They…they’ve suffered enough, you know that. Koushi and I, we…we need more time to tell them, we need to do it our way when we are sure they are ready. So please let’s keep it between us.”

With every word Daichi speaks the more Nobu-san deflates, contrary to what Daichi had believed nothing in his plea seems to give Nobu-san pleasure. By the end of the speech in fact, all he has to say is “Koushi?”

“Yes.”

“You call him by his first name.”

“I do.”

A pause. “And he calls me Daichi.”

Nobu-san understands. “I see.”

He makes to leave and his shoulders sag the same way they’ve always done, the skip in his steps lost to a simple name. “I won’t tell,” he says, and he sounds much older than his forty years. “I never intended to.”

“Thank you, Nobu-san. I’m in your debt.”

Nobu-san doesn’t reply, he lacks to show he’s even heard. Daichi watches him walk away and once he’s disappeared in the morning crowd he shifts his weight all to the wall behind him.

Tonight, or maybe tomorrow, as soon as possible he has to set something straight. He’s waited far too long to.

 

 

*

 

Suga and the kids are playing when the doorbell rings. It’s far too early for it to be Daichi but they all still run to the door wishing, nearly spilling watercolors all over the immaculate white floors.

It’s not Daichi of course, but someone even more surprising.

“Grandma!”

“Sachiko-san?”

She laughs at their surprise, lovely and delighted, and gathers them all in a hug. Yes, even Suga. “It’s good to see you, darling,” she tells him and her smile is soft, as are the hands cupping his face. “You look beautiful as always.”

He doesn’t, he knows. He looks exhausted and messy and he has paint stains on his shirt and pants but still, he appreciates the white lie.

“Thank you, Sachiko-san, so do you.”

He takes her luggage, heavy, he notices, and laughs at the kids hurrying back to the kitchen to show her their drawings. “I didn’t know you were coming,” he says, an apology for looking the way he does, for the state of the house.

She squeezes his arm. “Don’t worry, dear. I came just to lend a helping hand.”

She winks and flounces away, to where her grandkids have disappeared to, like the Fairy Godmother before Cinderella. If the Fairy Godmother had been summoned by Prince Charming himself, rather than by Cinderella’s desperate tears.

_Oh, Daichi…_

Suga hides a smile behind his hand and on the spur of the moment he spins on his feet, ready to see if a gown will appear out of thin air.

It doesn’t, but instead he’s left feeling quite dizzy.

That though, that might just be due to the places where his mind has drifted off to.


	31. Reaching out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Serious talks on all fronts.

Daichi comes home to an uncharacteristically quiet house that evening and the first sight that greets him is Suga, eyes low and tired, being used as a human pillow by the children. They are…reading, apparently, all three so intent they don’t even hear him approaching, Kaede half sitting in Suga’s lap and Ayame resting her cheek sweetly on his chest.

They are mouthing words Daichi can’t hear and from time to time they’ll argue over how this or that one is pronounced and show the tongue, but mostly they are calm, pressed so close even in the heat of July and relaxed. For once.

Suga especially, he looks tired, yes, but not stressed, not tense or weighed down by all the things he’s bound to do in the next few months. He looks like himself and when he finally notices Daichi a few steps away from him, leaning against the wall by the entrance, all he has for him is a smile.

And what a smile that is. Small and tender, it makes his eyes crinkle in the loveliest of ways.

“Hey.”

Daichi’s heart skips a beat. “Hi.”

“Daddy!”

Chaos returns to reign sovereign in this house. Daichi is nearly floored by two overactive children, caught by surprise and still a little weak in knees as he is Suga has to place a hand on the small of his back to steady him. “Welcome home,” he says, because apparently he doesn’t want Daichi to get out of this day alive.

“Y-yeah, I’m home.”

Stoop as low as to fuck his children’s nanny, that’s how Nobu-san had put it.

As if. As if that could ever be all there is to it.

Suga takes Kaede from him and huffs, bends his knees and back as if lifting him has become a feat and Kaede laughs, he puffs out his chest. “I grew four millimeters this week, Suga-san!” he declares. “Did you notice?”

“I did and also, Kaede-kun, I was there when your daddy measured you.”

In Daichi’s arms Ayame preens. “Yes that’s great Dede but I grew a full centimeter so I win.”

“Now now, I think it’s safe to say everybody here is a winner except for me because soon enough I really won’t be able to carry you around anymore!”

“Noooo, Suga-san!”

The kids are trying to climb Suga like a jungle gym when Daichi’s mother finally makes her way to the living room. “Oh I thought I’d heard your voice, Daichi!”

How she did isn’t clear, since he hasn’t said almost anything the whole time but it hardly matters. Daichi can’t put into words just how grateful he is that she came, with so little notice and without hesitation. It’s just been a few hours and Suga already looks so much better.

“Thank you so much,” Daichi whispers in her ear as they hug. She shakes her head at him – ‘’don’t worry, I was happy to’’ – and pats his cheek fondly.

“Now, I need some space to make my special garlic bread and certain drawings lying all over the kitchen island are not letting me…”

The kids jump off of Suga and hurry to free the table, Suga trails after them with a hand on his side. He’s red in the cheeks and panting a little bit, from laughter and the strain of lifting them both up.

“Oh my, they did quite a number on you, Suga-kun.”

“They sure did. Sorry for the drawings, Sachiko-san. We left them there to dry and then I completely forgot about them…”

Daichi watches his mother smile, still with the same fondness she directed to him, and he lets out a sigh. He watches her interact with Suga, easily, as if they’ve known each other for years, he watches her rub his arm in comfort when he tries to offer his help with dinner and laughter bubbles in his chest.

His mother always tried her hardest to like every single one of Daichi’s partners, or at least give them the benefit of the doubt. Boyfriends or girlfriends she never tried to scare anyone away, or threw insults masterfully disguised as harmless observations. Most of them never lasted long enough for her to meet more than once or twice, so she let herself forget all about them to help Daichi do the same.

And Yurika, well, she always liked Yurika. “She is a wonderful woman,” she’d declared the first time they met but Daichi had caught the subtle tension at the corners of her eyes. And it had taken the divorce to understand the cause.

“She is a wonderful woman, Daichi, but she was never the one for you.”

Apparently he changed when he was with her, he tried too hard, he was too tense, he was too serious. She never said any of that though, not until after Daichi and her had split. That’s just how his mother is.

And now…now Daichi is looking for a twitch, for a tension in her shoulders, a crack in her composure that would let him know, for sure, that what he’s seeing is not all there is but he finds none. He regards her smile and he finds it honest, he looks into her eyes and they are nothing but warm.

“I better go check on those two now, they have been in the kitchen for far too long…” she’s saying and smiles some more before disappearing in the other room.

Suga too watches her go and as soon as she’s gone he walks in closer to Daichi. “Thank you,” he whispers in his ear. He strokes his cheek, presses an impossibly soft kiss on the corner of his mouth.

His eyelashes tickle Daichi’s cheek.

“For what?” Daichi asks and it elicits laughter, another kiss.

“You know for what, you big teddy bear.”

“Teddy bear? Didn’t you say just a few weeks ago that I look like a dog? Make up your mind, Sug.”

“It’s not my fault you look like both! By the way, I saw the cutest dog the other day, her name is Daisy…”

And so he tells the tale, all the while they are busy picking up the kids’ toys off the living room floor. For the next hour or so he never stops smiling.

 

Dinner is delicious. His mother gives Suga advice on how to make the perfect bread, the perfect Hainan chicken, the perfect chocolate liquor…basically she never stops talking and Daichi has to hide his grin behind his glass of water for just how overwhelmed Suga looks by this onslaught of information.

At one point Daichi can actually hear Suga mutter ingredients under his breath to try not to forget. It’s hilarious, also Suga is so busy with it, so intent on the conversation that not the tiniest attack on Daichi’s food is made.

All which his mother put in his plate ends up in Daichi’s stomach and that too, like Suga’s smile, is a victory of sorts. But all too soon it’s over and the kids are rising from the table to go watch TV and Daichi is hit again with the nerves of this morning, courtesy of the conversation he had with Nobu-san.

Because now he has to talk with Suga, and his feelings were never something Daichi could express with ease, by employing his charisma of captain and the rules of oratory that so help him in the courtroom. When he talks about his feelings Daichi tends to forget everything but his own awkwardness.

“Um, I…”

See? Awkward.

His mother and Suga stop collecting the dirty plates from the table and turn to look at him. “Yes Daichi?”

“I…I need to talk with Suga for a moment,” he says in a rush and for a moment they both blink stupidly at him.

“What?”

He repeats himself, slowly, and at once his mother drops the plates in the sink. She regards Daichi with a brief, piercing look then, when she detects nothing worrying in his gaze but for his nerves, she leaves, closing the kitchen door behind her.

Daichi loves her so much.

“So, what do you need to talk to me about?” Suga asks, his voice light and lilting, soft as his hand was before, resting chastely on his knee all throughout dinner.

Daichi loves him so much.

And he’s nervous. Never in his life has he been more self-conscious of his feelings, never in his life has he had to say something even remotely similar to this. He let himself forget the official role Suga has in this house, the role the people on the outside identify him with, because it was easy, too easy the way Suga shook it off to become someone else, a fixed feature in the children’s life, a source of support for Daichi.

But now they are something, now they have something. And Daichi has no intention of messing it up, of masking it as anything else other than what it is.

“Daichi?” Suga calls him and now he’s nervous too, biting the inside of his cheek and bouncing his leg underneath the table. “You’ve been quiet for a long time, is there…is there something wrong?”

Daichi shakes his head, no, no there isn’t. Well there is in the sense that he handled certain things wrong but things, overall, are not wrong and God, why is he so nervous?

He closes his eyes for a moment, to at least try and collect his scrambled thoughts and blindly reaches out for Suga.

Suga finds him immediately. His hand fits perfectly in Daichi’s and it feels exactly the way Daichi remembers it, warm palms and cold fingertips, slender and soft but for the calluses on his thumb and forefinger. A student’s calluses from how he holds the pen, and then less pronounced but still perceptible a setter’s calluses, developed after years and years of practice and still persistent, still a part of him.

Daichi opens his eyes. “Just, wait one more second…” he says and for a while he just looks at him.

As perplexed as he is, and nervous too, Suga lets him, his head adorably tilted on one side. His bangs are falling on his face to cover his left eye. Daichi lets go of his hand to push them back, tuck them behind Suga’s ear and a thought hits him.

_It’s going to be alright._

It rings true, it is true and so he starts. “I talked to Nobu-san today.”

Another deep breath. “He…he knows about us.”

Suga tenses before him, under his touch. “B-but…how?”

Daichi tells him everything. About the kiss in the park that Nobu-san had seen, every word they’d shared right outside Ayame’s school. “He said he won’t tell,” he ends with.

“And you believe him?”

“I do, actually. He’s…well, he’s a petty prick but he’s not…he’s not cruel. His son is friends with Ayame, he’s known her for years I can’t imagine he’d hurt her just to get back at me.”

Suga lowers his eyes, to stare at the kitchen table, still full of bowls and dirty plates. There is a sauce stain near Suga’s seat where Ayame had tried to steal some bok choi from his plate. “Do you think it would hurt her, this…this thing between us?”

“I don’t know.”

Daichi wishes he could give Suga some security but more than that he doesn’t want to lie to him. He doesn’t know, he has no idea how Ayame would react to them, he can’t even begin to guess it.

“Kaede would be happy, I’m sure. I think he’s been pushing for it even but Ayame…she’s older, she remembers the divorce, the atmosphere around the house after and she is so, so attached to you.”

_If you were to leave, if this doesn’t work out…_

“Yeah.”

The simple thought of that is enough to make Daichi’s heart stop for a moment, contract in his chest to the point of pain. Grief. A few weeks together and the possibility of not making it is this heart-wrenching, this impossible to bear.

And isn’t that…isn’t that a clue, more than anything else, to just how deep this is. This feeling, this thing between them?

They are new to this but no one could say they rushed into it, without first making sure it was at least worth a shot.

Daichi shifts on his chair, till his knee is brushing against Suga’s. “I’m sorry,” he says.

Suga winces, he tenses again but past his nerves he shakes his head and cups Daichi’s cheek in his warm palm. “For what? You have nothing to be sorry for.”

The way he says it is weird, weirdly tense and sad, and Daichi moves in even closer so their foreheads as well are touching. “I wish things were easier.”

“It’s alright, it’s not your fault.”

Some of it is, and that he has to set right. Some good did come from the conversation with Nobu-san, after all.

He kisses Suga’s forehead and tells him, loud and clear, “I messed up.”

“From the moment we first kissed I forgot…well, everything that wasn’t you, I guess. I forgot our place, I forgot our situation and how other people would regard it.”

“Nobu-san called it a…a certain way-”

_Fucking._

_Stoop so low._

“And that’s not what I want, Sug.”

Suga is looking at him with eyes of gold, those that every night Daichi dreams to wake up to and Daichi tells him at last.

“You’re fired.”

A pause. Rapid blinks and words that won’t come out. “What?”

“You’re fired,” he says again.

And Suga stands. Without a sound the chair moves back and he makes his way around the kitchen island, to the counter, then around again. “I’m sorry, what?”

He looks pale, tired as he has the past few weeks, and now, suddenly, he looks upset too. “Is this…what are you trying to say?”

Daichi stands with him. He walks and walks till he and Suga are close once again. Damn him for being so damn vague, he knew he should have planned this whole speech ahead.

“I mean I…you, you can still come see the kids whenever you want-”

“Oh, thanks a lot!”

Suga snaps and just as fast he deflates, he reaches out for Daichi and rests his hands on his chest, closes them tight around the fabric of his shirt. “Daichi, if you…if you want to end this just say s-”

“No! God, no.”

He covers Suga’s hands with his own and at once Suga loosens his grip. “I don’t want to end this, Koushi,” he says, clear, finally.

“But talking with Nobu-san made me realize something. I may not be ready to tell the kids just yet but I’ll be damned if I let other people think such things about us, about you.”

“You…you stopped being just a nanny a long time ago, and because of that, because of how unnatural it felt to even call you that we forgot that that’s how we started. That that’s what you still are in the eyes of too many people.”

He links their fingers together. “And I…I don’t want you to be. That’s why you’re fired, officially.”

“Officially,” Suga echoes.

Officially, this is what they are not anymore.

Daichi leans in, “because I can’t feel conflicted about doing this,” he says and kisses Suga’s cheek.

“Or this.” The tip of his nose.

“Or this.”

Lastly, his lips.

Suga parts them, hands in Daichi’s hair he doesn’t let him go till they are both panting. Then he laughs, breathless and charming on Daichi’s mouth.

“What is it?”

He shakes his head and his hair flies everywhere, a halo of silver and gold in the light. “I never thought the day would come when I’d find the words ‘you’re fired’ romantic…”

“Well, I proved you wrong.”

A nod, Suga’s lips on his chin. “You proved me wrong.”

 

They tell the kids right away.

For a moment, after Daichi has told them he fired Suga, Ayame looks about to beat him up. She even takes a menacing step toward him, eyes ablaze and hands curled into fists but Suga is quick to put a hand on her shoulder and sit her and Kaede down on the couch.

His smile, Daichi suspects, is the only thing that keeps them both from screaming bloody murder.

He kneels before them and looks them both straight in the eyes as he talks, not once does he avert his gaze. “Listen, you know I’ve been studying to get my Master, right?”

They nod.

“Well, my…my dream since I came here was to study languages, become a translator, work at a publishing company maybe. Hopefully. I’ve worked for years to achieve that.”

“And I want to pursuit it, I have to pursuit it.”

For himself, Daichi knows, but for his father too. For all the sacrifices Sugawara-san made to send Koushi here.

Kaede’s lip is trembling. Before Suga can say more he takes a shallow breath and asks him a single, almost inaudible question. “S-So you’re leaving?”

Suga doesn’t let even a moment pass. As soon as the words have ceased to resound into everyone’s ears he lifts Kaede’s chin with his forefinger and strokes his cheek. “Absolutely not,” he declares, firm like Daichi has never heard him before. Fierce.

“I’ll just stop being your nanny, that’s all. Your…your father and I talked about it and if- if you’ll have me I could…I could come visit you, as a friend.”

He falls quiet and again he seems on edge, for his proposal, for the reaction the kids might have. Then Ayame throws her arms around his neck, so sudden he falls back with his behind on the floor, and he laughs in relief. Kaede follows him down to cling on to his arm and laughter turns into the most tender smile.

“I’ll try to come every day, I promise but with school, the thesis and all that I can’t guarantee I’ll succeed.”

“It’s alright, it’s alright as long as you never leave!”

Arms tight around them Suga hides his face in the crown of their hair. “As if a stupid thesis would be enough to keep me away from you.”

His eyes are downcast but Daichi can still hear them in his voice, the tears.

And his vision too becomes blurry.

These are his children after all, and this, this is the man he loves.

Ayame moves away from Suga’s hold, just enough to glare Daichi’s way. “You scared the poop out of me, dad, with your ‘’I fired Suga, blah blah’.”

Kaede agrees. “Yeah daddy, not cool.”

Their eyes are too bright though, their voices too shaky. Daichi laughs, despite the emotion - or maybe because of it, - and joins his family on the floor.

By the stairs his mother is muffling sobs behind her handkerchief but he can’t see her, nor the phone she has in her hand.

 

 

*

 

To Daisuke:

You concentrate on your case, my dear. Our son is fine, I promise, so please don’t worry. He’s more than fine.

 

 

*

 

It’s easier with Daichi’s mother there. Suga tries to come by every day and together with the children they play, they take care of the garden, they watch cartoons…but when it’s time for Suga to study, bury himself underneath piles and piles books he can, without feeling too guilty to.

And the kids understand. Maybe they sense his tension, the inescapable weight of duties settling on his shoulders, because as soon as he takes the books from his bag so do they. They get started on homework, read one chapter ahead from where their teacher stopped explaining, they draw.

All while huddled close to him on the couch, and they’ll smile whenever Suga stops his revision to press a kiss in their hair.

The hours spent with them, those chaotic as those calm, are the only moments of peace he gets some days.

 

“Tooru it’s…it’s not even 7 where are you going?”

The atmosphere in the apartment is tense still. Hajime passes by one day to get the last of his things and it’s just as awful as last time, just as loud. The words Suga hears Tooru hiss then, still through the bedroom wall, are all he gets from him for days.

“Contrary to what you seem to believe, Suga, what I choose to do with my time is none of your business.”

It never came easy to Tooru, apologize, and even though he’s going through some shit Suga has no intention of doing it for him. He will not apologize for leaving, he will not apologize for worrying, he can’t help either of those things anyway.

So he waits.

“Oikawa-san is being unreasonable,” Taka tells him a Tuesday morning before breakfast. Tooru once again didn’t join them. “My friend Kenji told me he saw him at a bar a couple of days ago, apparently he was drinking pretty heavily.”

Yeah, Suga heard him. It was almost 5 in the morning when he got back, stumbling over his own feet and muttering under his breath, he’d tripped by Suga’s door and when Suga had come out to help him up he’d flipped him off. Said he didn’t ‘need no one’, his exact words.

“I know. I asked Satori to keep an eye on him, at least when they’re at practice or on faraway matches.”

“But Tooru is not a child. He’s a moron but he knows where the limit is. He won’t…he won’t get himself into trouble he can’t get away with thanks to his charming smile.”

Taka throws a sideway glance his way then and with the excuse of fixing his shirt he rubs some of the tension away from Suga’s shoulders. “You believe that?”

_No._

_It’s just what I tell myself every night before going to bed._

Suga doesn’t answer. He squeezes Taka’s hand in his and goes to get ready for another work interview.

 

“Fukunaga-san speaks very highly of you, Sugawara-kun.”

Suga bows his head at Machimiya-san’s praise an forces his fingers to stop squeezing the briefcase so tight. “Fukunaga-sensei is a kind man.”

He traces the seams at the borders, the leather smooth and supple under his fingertips. “I have been lucky to have him as my mentor these past few years.”

Daichi let him borrow this briefcase, so that where his looks would fail it’d help him look more professional.

“When you get the job we’ll go buy one together,” he’d said and in the solitude of the kitchen he’d kissed Suga tenderly on his brow. Because Daichi is just wonderful that way.

Suga wishes he had as much faith in his own capabilities as Daichi does.

“Let’s not beat around the bush here, Sugawara-san,” Machimiya-san says all of a sudden, expression tight and unreadable. Instinctively Suga tenses. “The work you’ve done is, objectively, nothing short of impressive. Anyone could see your talent not only in understanding what authors try to convey with their words but also in translating that message for everyone to understand…”

But?

“But you are twenty-six. All my other candidates have not yet turned twenty-two and this company does believe in youth, cultivate talents and start them to this world young.”

Suga nods, he understands. A few minutes later he bows to Machimiya-san and thanks him for taking the time to meet with him.

“Sugawara-san.” Machimiya-san calls him when he’s already at the door.

“Yes?” Suga turns with no real hope in his heart.

“You really do have talent,” Machimiya-san says at last, he’s wearing a smile that resembles too much an apology.

“Thank you Machimiya-san, I appreciate it.”

Suga leaves, passing by a line of twenty-two years old and he’s never felt so old, he’s never felt so foolish. What does talent matter, after all, in a city so lost in the rush against time?

 

“I swear I felt like the only grown-up in a room full of children. At one point Fukunaga-san texted me to change the time of our meeting tomorrow and the guy sitting next to me laughed at my phone.”

“He said ‘Wow, haven’t seen one like this in eons’ as if I was walking around sporting a flip phone! This model came out, like, last year!”

Ayame pats his shoulder in comfort. “It’s a nice phone, Suga-san,” she says and throws the dice to let their little mushroom advance on the board.

They are playing Pictionary, kind of. They are miming whatever is indicated on the cards instead of drawing because, well, Ayame’s skills aren’t exactly the best – and Daichi’s too, as much as he denies it. Also they are using Monopoly tokens, for the Pictionary ones have gone missing in a rather mysterious fashion since the last time they played - Suga suspects foul play on that one – so basically it’s a mess.

But a fight has yet to break fifteen minutes in and Suga has learned to count his blessings when  in risk of facing the Sawamura competitiveness. Not to mention his own competitiveness.

Ayame stands up and mimes chicken wings.

“Chicken! Bird! Coward!”

She shakes her head and points to her shirt. There is nothing on it, no print that could give him a clue, just bright neon pink.

“What? Um…”

Then she raises one foot so she’s standing only on her left. “Uh, oh! Flamingo!”

“Yes!”

She sits down and gives Suga a triumphant high-five. “That was good, Suga-san!”

“Yeah yeah, whatever,” Daichi mutters under his breath. “I would have gotten it sooner.”

Suga doesn’t dignify him with an answer, just throws the dice at him, hitting him right in the chest. “Ow!”

“Oh please, that could not have hurt with the muscle mass you have!”

Daichi rolls the dice and once the children’s eyes are focused on the number of dots on the side that faces upwards he winks at Suga. A promise for later, a promise not to forget.

“Don’t worry about work, Suga-san,” Kaede tells him as he’s picking a card, “if they don’t choose you it’s ‘cuz they are stupid.”

Ayame nods in agreement. “Yeah, and if they’re stupid you are not gonna want to work with them anyway!”

She tries to sneak a peek at Kaede’s card but he pushes her quickly away. It’s enough to cause a small row, flailing, clumsy limbs and tongues being poked out in jest and spite but Suga is grinning too hard for his reproaches to come out with meaning.

It was only two interviews he did today and only that with Machimiya-san was scheduled thanks to Fukunaga-san’s meddling. He still has a few names to cross off his list, he can’t lose faith now. He tells himself so, but even with the kids’ words safely tucked between his ribs – where his heart is beating – he knows this will keep him up at night.

The possibility that he really is too old to get a fresh start. That maybe choosing to further his education was a mistake instead of an extra asset.

A hand settles on his waist, warm and discreet. “The kids are right, you know?” Daichi whispers in Suga’s ear, so soft it’s almost lost between Ayame’s laughter and Kaede’s indignation. “If they don’t pick you then they are really all just stupid.”

Suga’s grin turns a shade softer. “Don’t you think you might be a little biased?”

Daichi’s answer is a simple caress on his waist. Together they stand to break up the kids and the game starts once again.

He’s biased, Daichi, they all are. Still it’s nice, knowing the people he loves have all this faith in him.

Suga rolls the dice – six dots – and picks a card. The action to mime is coming home.

 

“For Love and Justice, the pretty sailor suited soldier Sailor Moon!”

Ayame’s voice overcomes the sounds of the TV, travels all the way across the living room to bounce on the kitchen walls. Piercing, it resounds in his ears and for the first time in an hour Suga raises his eyes from his book to recite alongside with Kaede: “In the name of the Moon I will punish you!”

He can see reflected in the TV set the kids doing Usagi’s pose and despite the mess of names and dates swirling in his head, making his temples ache, he smiles.

“You got them addicted to that anime, Sug,” Daichi calls from the other side of the kitchen island, where he’s alone washing the dishes.

The muscles of his back shift and move with every gesture, perfectly visible through the thin linen of his white T-shirt, and Suga takes a moment to register the words that were just said to him.

He swallows a sigh down and fixes his eyes on the book once again. “Somebody had to, Dai. Kids need Sailor Moon in their lives.”

Daichi laughs, deep from his chest and lovely, but he doesn’t reply. Suga glares holes into yellowing pages and pushes his glasses on his nose. He can’t get distracted now, by anime or gorgeous men alike, if he survives these three more pages then he’ll only have two chapters left to memorize.

He can do this. He can.

The water in the sink stops falling. Steps approach and just as Suga is getting ready for a warm, comforting touch they fade, far away from him.

Suga frowns but doesn’t look up…until the sounds of the TV stop and the kitchen door clicks closed, that is. “What-?”

“It was bothering you, wasn’t it? The noise.”

Daichi smiles at him, as if to say ‘it’s ok’, and as he moves back to the sink, where the dishes all still need to be dried, he leans down to press a kiss on Suga’s temple.

Suga stops him with a hand on his arm. “But I…I don’t like closing doors in their faces…”

It’s much better now, yes, but what if the kids want to share something with him? They’ll take one look at that closed door and think he doesn’t want to be bothered, they’ll keep whatever comment or joke to themselves.

And what if that joke is really funny? What if that comment is really witty?

Suga will never get to hear it.

“Wow, I can actually hear your thoughts, Suga.”

“S-shut up, I…”

He already took some time off to study today, right after the kids finished their snack, and they both acted like such good sports, drawing in silence next to him for over an hour without once bothering him.

“Hey,” Daichi calls him, he tilts his chin up so their eyes are finally meeting. “You are not their nanny anymore, remember?”

“I know, I know.”

How could he forget the way Daichi broke the last of their bounds, ended the last of their pretense? “But I…I said I’d come here as a friend and friends don’t come by your house to study, forcing you sit in silence for hours on end.”

“Suga, since I came here you’ve done nothing but play with the kids. Seriously you’ve been with them since what? Four? Five? Now it’s 9:30, that’s five hours you’ve spent with them. A whole afternoon.”

His expression turns softer. “And you didn’t have to.”

No. No, he didn’t have to but it’s been months since duty was what pushed him to come here. In fact it stopped being just a matter of duty after pretty much a week spent with these children. “I wanted to come though. That’s…that’s why.”

The fingers on his chin become a palm, cupping his jaw tenderly and brushing away his hair. “I know that, Koushi, and the kids know it too. They know and they appreciate that you take time out of your days, every day, just to be with them.”

“Why do you think they always look so happy?”

His eyes crinkle at the corners, with a smile, with a suggestion that has Suga’s knees shaking.

It’s because of you, they seem to say.

_‘Me.’_

_‘I’m the reason they’re happy?’_

Daichi thumbs at the mole beneath his eye. A yes, an agreement.

Suga points his feet to the ground and is surprised to find it steady, solid and real. Tentative he smiles back. “I love them,” he says, even though Daichi knows – he can’t not know – he says it again, firm and loud. “I love your children.”

And Daichi kisses him. First soft, his touch nothing but a caress against his lips, then, slowly, it turns deeper but even then without ever becoming anything other than pure tenderness. Tender every meeting of their tongues, tender the way Daichi lingers on his upper lip and the nibbling he gives. Heartbreaking are the pecks he keeps pressing on Suga’s lips, on the corners of his mouth, on his jaw long after they’ve separated.

Suga trembles before it all, his chest too slim, too small to contain the rhythm of his heart.

It feels too much like a declaration of love, the way Daichi is kissing him, the way he’s touching him. More than ever, louder than usual.

“Daichi?”

Daichi kisses him once more, one last time, close-mouthed and warm, then he lets him go. He looks at him, all of him from his parted lips to his chest, rising and falling fast with the breath he’s trying to catch, to his cheeks and then his eyes. He tucks his hair behind his ear and shakes his head, as if he too has no explanation for what has gotten into him.

“I, um…”

He clears his throat, he stands. When he’s made himself presentable he opens the kitchen door and calls the children’s names.

“What is it, dad?” Ayame answers and she and Kaede prop themselves up on the back of the couch to look at him.

“Suga still has a little more studying to do,” Daichi says, his voice still comes out deeper than it usually is, “we are closing the door so he can concentrate. Is that alright with you?”

The kids turn to stare at Suga, still sitting at the kitchen table behind Daichi, and smile, wide and disarming. “Yeah, sure.”

“Don’t worry about it, Suga-san.”

A pause, then “You’ll put us to bed, right?”

Of course he keeps coming here, even if he doesn’t have to. How could Suga ever stay away?

“Yeah, I’ll even tuck you in.”

The kids high-five and with one last grin that’s only for him they sit back on the couch to watch the rest of the episode.

Daichi closes the door and gently he leans back again it. “See? I told you,” he says.

Suga loves him, he loves them all so much he feels like he’s going to explode from it. Too much love will kill you, isn’t that what Freddie Mercury used to say?

He smiles, he shakes his head at the way he fell, so fast, so thoroughly victim of a feeling so addictive and he gets back to his book, to dates, to obscure names. It’s a good way to give his heart a break, a time of respite from all the things he can’t control and that for once he doesn’t feel like he has to.

Daichi gets back to the dishes but when Suga is finally done, forty-five minutes later with his brain in an hyper-active daze, he readily takes the book off of Suga’s hands and starts to quiz him.

This too, somehow, has become part of their routine.

 

The kids in bed and the sky ink dark outside, Daichi insists on driving him home and Suga only pretends to argue for about a minute before caving. Even a few minutes stuck in the Tokyo traffic, alone in Daichi’s car, is something he’ll cherish till tomorrow evening, when he’ll finally get to see him again.

“Ok but this time try not to show your scary face to every driver that crosses our path, Daichi.”

“Take it out on the people who don’t know how to fricking drive, Koushi!”

“Boys, boys…” Sachiko-san calls them to order but her eyes are twinkling with amusement.

Daichi deflates at once, strokes his face in a bout of self-consciousness. “And my face is not scary,” he grumbles under his breath, perhaps hoping Suga won’t hear him.

Suga does and he laughs, oh if he laughs. “No you’re right, your face is downright terrifying.”

“Only when you are mad though,” he adds as Daichi’s expression falls once again. He raises a hand to cup his jaw and his thumb draws patterns on Daichi’s cheekbones. “Most of the time it’s a very nice face.”

And Daichi’s eyes soften.

Yeah this one, it’s Suga’s favourite face in the whole wide world. It beats even John Cho’s.

“Your keys, Dai,” Sachiko-san interjects in a timid whisper, holding the car keys Daichi had been looking for for the past fifteen minutes.

Suga moves away at once, his hand limp now along his side and cheeks aflame with embarrassment. “Sorry Sachiko-san…”

He got carried away, he shouldn’t have…that’s Daichi’s mom. She knows about them but still she might not approve of these kind of displays of affection. She might not approve in general…

But just as he’s doing his best to work himself into a frenzy, over-thinking each and every thing he can like Daichi always says, Sachiko-san takes his chin between her fingers and forces him to meet her eyes. “Oh Koushi-kun, there is nothing to be sorry for. Nothing at all,” she tells him, warm and categorical at the same time, the way only moms can be.

Well, the way Suga has always pictured them.

He smiles and Sachiko-san smiles back, she throws a look back at her son. “You were right, Daichi, his smile really is like something out of a dream.”

“You told her that, Dai?”

Daichi freezes, he blushes all the way down his neck. “I d-don’t really rememb- oh shut up! Let’s go before I decide to make you walk back home.”

“You would never.”

It’s a bluff, Daichi is too much of a prince to carry through such threats, but it’s always better not to anger him. Especially if driving awaits them. So Suga hurries to grab his bags – they’ve multiplied since he started bringing books with him – and wishes Sachiko-san goodnight. “Thank you for your help today.”

“Don’t even mention it, my dear.”

By the front door she stands on the tips of her toes and kisses both his cheeks. And this too, feels so much like what a mother would do.

Suga’s heart constricts, deep inside his ribcage and he waves at her even through the car window, like a little kid ready to go on an adventure.

“Your mother is lovely,” he says to Daichi as soon as they are alone. His eyes fixate on the lights outside, those of cars and the neon signs of clubs, the halos around lampposts that reflect on the wings of flies.

Daichi hums and turns left, curses when they meet an endless line of cars stuck at the crossroad. “Yeah, she is. But so, so nosy too.”

Despite himself Suga smiles. That was such a childish answer.

“She likes you, you know?”

“She hardly knows me, Dai.”

“Well, she likes what she knows.”

Suga turns away from the outside world and meets Daichi’s eyes, black in the shadows of the car they seem to absorb every source of light that attempts to catch them. He doesn’t reason further.

“She never acted this way around my other partners,” Daichi continues and he sounds sure, not like he’s trying to convince Suga but honestly, earnestly sure. “She is…relaxed around you.”

“And with the others she wasn’t?”

A shrug, Daichi’s gaze lost on the road ahead once again. “Not really. She never kissed any of them, that’s for sure, or at least not after having known them for so little.”

Suga leans back on the headrest and watches him, the muscles shifting in his arm whenever he changes gear, his fingers around the wheel, closed tight but not fidgety with impatience. He’s gorgeous, very much so and Suga is so, so lucky to have him.

“And were they many? The people who got to meet your mom?”

The smirk that graces his face then makes him all the more attractive. “Are we really doing this?”

Suga smiles back. It’s custom, asking about exes, and he’s curious. “Why not?”

Why not, after we’ve come to learn so much about each other.

“Alright then, four. Yurika of course, my high school sweetheart, and a couple of boyfriends from my first years of college. This was when my parents were moving back and forth from here to Miyagi, so it was easier to bring people to dinner.”

“There. Satisfied or do you also want names?”

“No, I’m good. Smartass.”

The irony of calling Daichi the smartass in this relationship is not lost. Daichi throws his head back and laughs as soon as the word reaches his ears, then a guy in a hideous gold Smart cuts him off by suddenly changing lanes and laughter turns to furious barks.

“You stupid moron!”

The guy flips them off and they reciprocate in kind.

“Now it’s your turn,” says Daichi once they’ve safely turned right and into the street that leads to campus.  “Give me your magic number, Sug.”

“You mean the number of guys I took to meet my father?”

“Yep.”

“Then that would be a zero.”

Daichi does a double take, from him to the road and then again, with his mouth open wide. “What? You mean, you never-?”

Before his shock Suga blushes, he retreats into his shoulders with an awkward shrug. “I told you I never had serious relationships…”

“I do know it but it’s not like I thought I’d marry all of the four people I let my parents meet.”

“Well, I…I only wanted my father to meet the guys I was serious about and I never…I never felt that I could be. Not with any of the men I dated, not until…”

_Not until I met you._

He leaves it unsaid but he reads in the crinkling of Daichi’s eyes, in the tension that slowly, all at once leaves his body that Daichi understood anyway. “It’s weird to you, isn’t it? That in twenty-six years I was never serious about anyone.”

“No. No Suga I don’t think that’s weird. And I also don’t think that was ever the problem.”

He’s right. The idea of being serious with someone scared Suga for the longest time, in a way it still does, but in the same way it thrilled him, thinking of meeting a person with which he could finally share his burden. But it never happened, not once before he met Daichi, and ultimately this knowledge had scared him even more. Again, before he set foot in that cafè. Before he took a leap from the highest spot the swing could reach.

In the same moment their hands reach out to meet. In the darkness they connect, joined palm to palm they close around each other.

“Will you let me meet your father?” Daichi asks, half jest half a real question.

And Suga could say ‘you’ve already met him’ he could pretend to be clueless a little while longer but the thing is, he doesn’t want to.

They reach his apartment and as the car stops he leans over, on Daichi’s side. “Yes,” he whispers, simply.

Then he kisses him.

Daichi’s lips are chapped, rough from a day of uncertain outcome where Daichi bit them nearly to the point of bleeding, and they leave Suga’s tingling even as he’s trying his best to soothe them, trace them with a gentleness he rarely possesses.

He loves it.

“God I can’t, ah, I can’t wait a whole day for this,” Daichi hisses between his teeth and his fingers find their place in Suga’s hair, pulling him close, closer till Suga is all but sitting on his lap.

 “I, um, I have more interviews tomorrow,” Suga tells him as they are trying to catch their breaths. “They are both…they are both close to your office, maybe I could…”

“Yes. _Please_.”

Suga shivers at that word, whispered in the dip of his collarbone. He nods and cards his fingers through his hair, tries to fix it the best he can. Another kiss and all his effort is rendered futile.

“Daichi…”

Daichi nods but still he circles his waist with his arms. “I know, I know.”

He hates leaving the children at night. Even with his mother in the house and the alarm set he doesn’t trust to stay away too long. Suga can sense it in the tension of his grip, the conflict, the want to stay.

He makes the decision for both of them. “You need to go now,” he says.

_Otherwise one more second and I simply won’t let you._

He presses his lips against Daichi’s, chaste, and opens the car door. His knees still feel weak. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Daichi nods. “Say hello to Oikawa-san for me,” he says, his voice thunder in the summer sky, and with one last wave he’s gone.

Suga wishes he could, he wishes he could say anything at all to the stubborn, stubborn man he calls his best friend. How did Daichi come up with that anyway, he never asks Suga to send his greetings to Tooru. To Taka sometimes, yes, accomplice Kaede’s interest but to Tooru…

He shrugs at the empty road and turns on his heels to make his way home. But one step and he’s frozen still.

Tooru is sitting on the steps to the front door, arms loosely crossed over his chest he’s staring Suga right in the eyes. He’d been waiting for him, for God knows how long.

Suga lets out a breath and takes a step toward him, then another. Four steps and Tooru hurries by his side, without a word he wraps his arms around Suga’s shoulders.

“T-Tooru, what…?”

No answer comes. Suga hugs him back, smile hidden in the crook of his neck.

 

“I didn’t mean to…”

“I know.”

They walk inside and sit down on Suga’s bed, face to face, legs crossed and knees bumping every now and then. Onyx insisted on coming in too and she’s purring in Suga’s lap.

In a surprising turn of events Tooru reaches out to pet her belly.

“She’s cute when she’s like this,” he says under Suga’s disbelieving stare, then with a sigh he straightens. His expression turns tight, the line of his shoulders low with mortification.

“I’m sorry, Koushi.”

His full name, no playful honorifics or shortenings. His first name, Koushi, not Suga – the way Tooru always refused to call him unless when angry – or Sugawara, destined only for teasing or furious arguments.

Hearing his name from Tooru, after what seems like eons since he last heard it, more than the apology makes Suga relax. “It’s ok, Tooru.”

“No. No it isn’t, I…” he hesitates again but when Suga tries to talk, tell him it’s not necessary, Tooru raises a hand to stop him. “I need to say this, alright?”

And Suga nods.

“I found the sandwiches, I…I don’t think I said it but I found them. And the cream, the wraps for my knee, my phone kept ringing at lunch time to get me to stop practicing. It worked, I’ve gotta say.”

“I know. I found the empty Tupperware boxes in your gym bag.”

Tooru attempts a smile before his grin but it dies soon, replaced once again by mortification, once again by regret. “You kept stuffing it with food, even after I…I said those things to you. About Sawamura-san and moving...”

“It’s going to take more than a few mean words for me to stop worrying about you.” He means caring, but Tooru knows that well enough. “A lot more, considering how self-destructive you can be when you’re upset.”

“We have that in common, Kou-chan.”

That they do. If they were able to survive these eight years of college it’s only because their bad phases never seemed to overlap.

“Koushi?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“It’s alr-…you’re welcome.”

Suga squeezes Tooru’s knee, insistent until he loosens up a little and cracks another smile. “I’ve missed you,” he says at last, after Suga has pressed down so hard on his leg he’s nearly caused him to topple over on the mattress.

Suga lets him go. “I’ve missed you too, Tooru.”

It’s enough for him, it’s enough that Tooru is back to talking to him, that they are together in the same room without the uncomfortable silence of the past days hanging heavily between them but Tooru makes no move to come closer, he makes no move to lighten the calm atmosphere with a provocation of his usual. “Koushi…”

It’s enough for Suga, the few words they just shared, but not for Tooru. Not after all the words they shared that day.

“You must know that I never meant what…what I said about your relationship with Sawamura-san.”

Oh.

“I do know that.”

It had only hurt then for the anger and resentment Tooru seemed to feel against him. While Suga knows that’s how their relationship is going to be regarded by many once they’ve made the step to tell the outside world, he also knows that none of the people who will think it that way are the people who matter.

His father, his nana, his friends, they would never think of him this way. Tooru doesn’t think of him this way, but he still said it, to hurt him. The purpose is what Suga had hated.

Tooru closes his eyes as he tells it all and nods at the end of each sentence. When Suga is done he raises his eyes again. “I didn’t mean it,” he says again. “Not a word of it.”

“Truth is I’m so, so unbelievably glad you found him.”

He shrugs at the surprise in Suga’s eyes and he explains. “You are not the only one who worries, Kou.”

“What…?”

_What did you need to worry about?_

Tooru presses a finger on his chest before he can finish. Not at the centre of his chest, but to the side, his left side. Right above his beating heart. “I was afraid you’d never give this away, Kou.”

To mask his shock Suga slaps Tooru’s finger away. Hard. “Kou-chan!”

“That’s what you get for turning into such a sap in front of me.”

But Tooru still continues and he says what Suga never got to hear from him. “I know you hide behind your smile, Koushi, you always have. Why do you think I kept calling you Mr. Refreshing months after we started living together?”

“Because you’re an obnoxious brat?”

“That too, but mostly for how you used to smile even when things were going bad. At the beginning I simply thought you were crazy, you know, one of those airheads who smiles because they don’t understand just how much shit is hitting the fan. But then I realized that’s just how you protect yourself.”

“You never let anyone in, except for me of course and even then it took a year before I learned even so much as your father’s name.”

“I…I’m not that bad.”

“Yeah you are, Kou, and it’s ok, I guess, that’s who you are but it drives me up the wall sometimes how you seem to care about everyone but never let anyone care for you. And I saw the same thing happen with all your past boyfriends. They grew frustrated because you kept them at arm length and you grew frustrated too, with yourself, for not being able to do anything other than push them away.”

“It was hard, you know, watching you do that.”

No, Suga hadn’t known. He had no clue Tooru kept so many unshared thoughts to himself, about him, about his life.

“So I’m happy for you now, Kou. I’m happy you have him.”

A pause and Tooru’s eyes glisten, his hands tighten on his lap. “I only…I only said those things because I…because I fucking hate the thought of you leaving.”

Suga doesn’t think much about it. With Onyx still lying on his lap he tugs on the fabric of Tooru’s shirt and pulls him close, into a hug so fierce it knocks the breath out of their lungs.

“I hate it too,” he whispers in Tooru’s neck. His nails threaten to scratch the skin of Tooru’s back.

Tooru doesn’t seem to care, he’s holding him just as tight. “I’m going miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too.”

It takes a while for them to find the strength to separate, it’s going to take a strength they have yet to discover to say goodbye when it’s time. Goodbye to a life that was comfortable and safe with each other only a wall apart.

They kiss, brief and forceful on the lips, and ignore the suspicious brightness of the other’s eyes.

Tooru moves to sit by his side and they stare at the ceiling, will the tears to dry before they can fall on their cheeks and count the cracks in the old paint.

Suga has reached seven when Tooru speaks again. “So…”

“So…?”

“Have you banged him yet?”

“Tooru!”

A pillow square in the face is the only answer he gets.


	32. A dream for myself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything's coming up.

“The work you’ve done is remarkable, Sugawara-kun, no none denies that but I’m not sure you’d be a...a good fit for this company.”

“I value Fukunaga-san’s opinion, as you may know he and I go way back but your age concerns me, Sugawara-kun.”

“Are you really sure you want to get started now on this career path?”

Suga walks in Daichi’s office to find a drink already waiting for him. “You sounded tense on the phone,” Daichi tells him as he’s closing the door behind them and Suga sighs. There are no real answers he can give right now, not without cursing himself for the choices he made years ago, not without screaming every swear word he knows at the top of his lungs, till his throat is dry and scratching and burning with the fire of his spite.

He has one more interview today, in the early afternoon, and he doesn’t know where he’s going to find the strength to face another line of baby-faced twenty years old. He doesn’t know.

But Daichi helps, his presence, his nearness, his voice in Suga’s ear, it helps. Suga brushes his hair away from his forehead and kisses him, breathes in the subdued scent of Daichi’s cologne and it’s better.

Little by little it gets better.

“You are the only good thing I’ve seen all day,” he whispers in the crook of his neck. “That was worded weirdly, wasn’t it?”

“It’s alright, I get what you mean.”

Daichi captures his lips in another kiss, deeper, insistent. “I spent all morning discussing the best way to financially destroy a cheater with a woman who wouldn’t stop feeling up my arm, so believe me when I say I understand.”

Despite himself Suga smiles against chapped lips and trails his hand lazily up Daichi’s arm. Beneath the loosened cuffs of his shirt he strokes the inside of his wrist, on the pad of his thumb he feels his pulse, the rhythm of it accelerate with each new touch, with each kiss. He palms his forearm, the line of muscles now rigid with tension, and wraps his fingers around his arm.

He digs his nails into his bicep, that even not flexed is beautifully solid, sculpted. Each part of Daichi’s body seems carefully carved in marble, made to never break. “God, as deplorable as that kind of behaviour is I so can’t blame that woman.”

He moves into Daichi’s body and finds him trembling. His eyes are dark. “You can’t?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Even when I first met you...I think I spent half the time in that cafè fantasizing about what was beneath the fancy suit.”

“Is that so?”

With his free hand Suga tugs on his tie and lets their mouths meet again.

This time though, this time it’s different. The comfort Daichi’s presence brings becomes need with his touch, and the memory of what Suga has seen of him sparks a flame low in his stomach. One that is not relieved by his kiss but only heightened.

He licks into Daichi’s mouth and the hands on his waist tighten almost to the point of pain. Fingers press on his hipbones, hard enough to leave bruises, hard enough to make his breath hitch.

His hips move, of their own accord they snap in search for friction and before he can even think of pulling back again Daichi’s hands slide down to cup his ass, forcing him to stay perfectly still. Forcing him to stay exactly where he is.

“Suga...”

Daichi hides his face in the crook of his neck, where he calls his name over and over, a prayer against his skin. Open-mouthed he kisses along the line of his jaw, leaving scorching heat in his trail, and when he gets to his ear Suga is all but clinging to him in the hope not to fall.

His knees seem to have turned to jelly, and his heart...

His heart...

He closes his eyes, they can’t bear this light anymore, and with a single pull he gets the shirt out of Daichi’s pants. He undoes the last few buttons and just like that he’s touching Daichi, his warm stomach, his waist, the line of coarse black hair that disappears below the belt.

His skin is soft, Suga doesn’t know why he finds it so surprising but it is, it’s a shock to feel Daichi so real beneath his palm, breathing against him, in sync with him as thought they were one. One being, Platonic, with two heads and four arms, four legs.

One being, invincible.

Daichi leans in to lick the dip of his collarbone and when Suga sighs, when he curls his fingers around Daichi’s – bare, bare – chest, the pleased hum that follows echoes in both their ribcages.

“I’ve wanted you for so long...”

Suga couldn’t tell you who it was to say this, right now Suga can’t tell anything at all. Except that he loves.

He loves, he loves.

His shirt loosens, slides down and off his right shoulder that now is bare for Daichi to see. And Daichi looks, lips parted he looks at that simple strip of skin, like he’s never seen it before, and with his forefinger he taps each and every freckle he notices.

For some reason Suga feels the need to explain. “I...I don’t get tanned in the summer, I only get sunburned,” he stammers, words stumble upon one another with the excitement mixed to embarrassment that bubbles in his chest, “I b-become red as a lobster and then I get these freckles that stay all year long.”

Daichi looks away from them to stare into his eyes and Suga shrugs, he doesn’t know what else to do, he should have stopped talking ten sentences ago...

“Actually they stay forever because I’m pretty sure some of these have been here since I was a kid-”

Daichi shakes his head, as though he can’t believe his eyes, and presses a kiss on his shoulder.

“You are so lovely...” he whispers before pressing another kiss where a freckle stands out, smaller than the others, right on the curve of his shoulder.

Already a mess in his chest, Suga’s heart skips a beat.

Why must Daichi...why must he always say the things Suga never expected to hear directed at him? Why must he always catch Suga off guard, render him speechless?

Why...

Suga covers Daichi’s heart with his hand. It’s beating with the same rhythm as his own, again. It sped up with Suga’s surprise, it slowed to a fond drag as he was rambling and now it’s accelerating again, with their gazes locked.

_Why?_

(Because Suga does the same to him.)

Never looking away from the eyes staring back at him he tugs on his shirt, the hems of it rest on his upper arms and now both his shoulders are bare, his collarbones, part of his chest. He takes a step forward, the last possible without merging into Daichi, and lets their hips meet.

He lets himself feel Daichi’s hardness, he lets himself enjoy this. After so, so long he finally can.

He moves against Daichi and Daichi moves with him. They lean in for another kiss and they moan in each other’s mouth, they search almost desperately for a way to detach from the frenzy that surrounds them. The glass windows and the blinding lights, the responsibilities, the people walking past them just a wall away.

Suga closes his eyes to this all and grinds on Daichi’s crotch. Daichi’s hands spasm around the flesh of his waist, that of his ass. In one swift movement he lifts Suga up and all but throws him on one of the long, leather sofas in the room. Suga’s breath gets caught in his throat.

He stays still for a moment, blinking stupidly at everything that’s happening, fast, so fast...but when Daichi lowers himself on him he parts his legs to welcome him. His arms wrap around Daichi’s neck, his shoulders and their lips meet once again, tingling and swollen, tinged a dark red.

They’ve never...he and Daichi have never kissed like this. It was never quite this urgent, never quite so desperate. It was never this obvious, how long they’ve waited to get where they are, together.

Daichi rocks his hips against Suga’s, again, in a rhythm that rises, slow but constant, breathtaking, and Suga throws his back in pleasure. Drops of light spark behind his closed eyelids and he barely has time to bite down hard on his bottom lip before a moan escapes him.

It feels so good, this, Daichi, above him, everywhere around him, Daichi, Daichi, Daichi. His mouth hot on Suga’s neck, his hands tight on his waist, and...God, and his cock pressing insistent against him.

“Daichi...”

“I know, I know...”

Daichi grabs his thigh, sudden he throws it around his waist and the next time they move he’s the one to chant Suga’s name. His arms, splayed on both sides of Suga’s head, are trembling slightly with the strain of holding himself up. Suga shifts to press a kiss on his bare wrist and the shaking only gets harder.

“Don’t...” Daichi hisses.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t make me lose my mind.”

But when has Suga ever listened to him?

He kisses him one more time, in the same exact spot as before. It’s a moment, then Daichi falls on him and with a rush of breath Suga starts laughing, for the shock and the mild pain that a man of over 180 pounds landing on you inevitably causes.

“Shit, sorry...”

Daichi scrambles up and away and when Suga finally opens his eyes he finds him still panting, chest heaving with shallow breaths and red to the tips of his ear. His brows are furrowed though, with embarrassment, Suga can almost hear the stream of curses in Daichi’s head.

You moron.

Fucking idiot.

You ruined everything.

He sits up too and cups Daichi’s cheek. He kisses the corner of his mouth and continues to smile, wide and silly at him until Daichi looks about ready to dig a hole in the ground and bury himself in it.

“I-I think I should...get back to Ennoshita, tell him that the Sakuragi file case is done...” Daichi says, he rambles about things Suga doesn’t understand, work things, and all the while he paces across the room, his back to Suga.

The moron. The complete idiot, Daichi hates being seen like this. More than he hates showing his vulnerable side he hates making a fool of himself in public, in any way. He hates fumbling with his words, he hates tripping on the street, he hates when people accuse him of being lame.

It comes with being a captain, this composure, being a successful man. Or maybe those were the consequences of Daichi being who he is, driven, ambitious, charismatic. A perfectionist.

The model son, the model man, the model father. And a guy like that cannot fall down on his partner while they are both trying to get off.

“I have a meeting at three and where the hell is Hinata with my lunch anyway...”

Never mind the fact that Suga doesn’t give a shit about that. Never mind that Suga would have never fallen in love with him if poster boy for rectitude and savoir-faire were all he was.

“Daichi,” he calls, and the rambling stops at once.

“What?”

“Do you remember that time you saw me with a dozen of Ayame’s fish bobby pins in my hair and agreed to wear them too?”

Daichi turns to look at him and the crease between his brows is still there, still stubbornly present and deep. “Yeah, but what does it have to d-”

“And when you wore red nail polish for a night because Ayame had put it on you and you didn’t want to take it off after she put so much effort into it?”

Daichi nods and his expression softens with understanding.

“What about that time we got chased by an evil duck because you’d rejected her weeks before? Or that time we-”

“Alright, Suga. Alright. I get what you mean.”

Suga stands too and once Daichi is finally within reach again he swats his arm, hard.

“Ow, what the hell...”

“Stop acting as if I still have no clue how uncool you are, Sawamura!”

Daichi rubs his arm, a scowl on his face that’s just on this side of petulant. Not something to worry about anymore. “That’s different from, um...”

“Nearly cracking your boyfriend’s ribs while you are trying to make him come?”

“S-Suga!”

“What? That’s what happened!”

Before the stubborn – and mildly offended – silence that follows, Suga wraps his arms around Daichi’s waist and hides his face in the crook of his neck, where the smell of his cologne is stronger. “It’s better this way, you know?”

“I don’t want us to have sex where everyone could hear us.” _Not the first time anyway._ “And I sure as hell don’t want to worry about being too loud while you are deep inside of me.”

He speaks and his lips caress Daichi’s skin with every word. So close he can see the goosebumps break, so close he feels Daichi shiver as if he were himself.

“That is, if you manage to get inside of me after you’ve broken every bone in my body steamrolling me.”

“Damn it Suga!”

Daichi pushes him away but the corners of his mouth are twitching charmingly upwards now, the laughter lines near his eyes finally visible. “You’re impossible.”

“I thought that’s what you liked about me, captain.”

He receives no answer, it’s Daichi’s special way to annoy him, and goes to sit on the arm of the chair behind Daichi’s desk. He watches Daichi ring Ennoshita and ask about his lunch and laughs when Ennoshita hurries inside to bring it to him.

“Hinata-kun came in twenty minutes ago,” the guy says and leaves a carefully wrapped bento on the desk.

“Twenty minutes ago? Why didn’t you say so then?”

Ennoshita’s eyes gleam with amusement and Suga knows at once what his answer is going to be. Daichi, unfortunately for him, is too oblivious to, and is left sputtering at the words that follow.

“I thought you might be...otherwise occupied, Sawamua-san. I didn’t want to bother you.”

The wise man, Ennoshita leaves before Daichi can regain his composure or wit, closing his door behind him with a cackle. Daichi gapes at it, still speechless with shock and now he’s of a red so violent it’s nearly purple.

“He...you...”

“Do you need to buy a vowel, Dai?”

If Daichi had feathers they would be ruffled right now. “He just...can you believe what my assistant just dared to imply?”

“Yeah, the truth.”

Daichi turns on his heels to glare at him but Suga only grins winningly at him. “If the guy had decided to come in when your lunch arrived he would have found you with both your hands on my ass, dear, so don’t act all proper with me.”

Daichi snorts but he says no more on the argument. Instead he sits on his chair and squeezes Suga’s thigh. “Our lunch,” he corrects and when he tugs the wrap open two bentos arranged in a pile are revealed, identical except for the protein. Shrimp for Suga and filet for Daichi.

“I had Hinata put extra-spicy sauce in yours too.”

Suga looks down at him and all Daichi does is shrug. It’s no big deal, it seems to mean, and indeed it isn’t. But it’s still sweet.

Suga slides down the armchair and on to Daichi’s lap and presses a loud, smacking kiss on his cheek. Then he shoves a shrimp in his mouth.

Interviews are draining emotionally, and in result physically as well, and now that he thinks about it he’s not all that sure he had breakfast this morning.

“Thanks Dai,” he mutters with his mouth full.

Daichi squeezes his hip in acknowledgement and starts to dig in as well. “So,” he says between one bite and the other, “did those interviews really go that bad?”

And between one bite and the other Suga tells him. “They were all, ugh, I don’t know I just...they left me with a sour taste in my mouth and that can’t be a good sign, can it?”

“And all those other candidates, Daichi I swear some of them looked like they hadn’t even hit puberty yet. But that’s what matters now, for companies, for business: youth. The younger you are the better.”

Daichi puts down his chopsticks and looks up at him. Suga does the same and he’s surprised when he sees Daichi’s eyes burning, intense and dark with purpose.

“That’s the thing though, Sug,” he intones, with a emphasis that makes his voice bounce off every wall, “they may be younger but they are not necessarily better.”

“Not yet maybe they aren’t but they could be in time, with experience, and companies are willing to give that to them, for the sake of shaping exactly the kind of employers they want. With the competences they need, with the attitude they need.”

For a while they keep quiet, munch their food in a silence that sits heavy on Suga’s chest.

Then Daichi sits back on his chair and with slow fingers he begins to caress the small of his back. “You know when I first realized I wanted you?” he asks, out of nowhere.

Suga blinks at him, doesn’t give it much thought. “When you saw my sexy ass in tight pants?”

“Not, jeez, not wanted _wanted_ you. When I first realized I wanted to hire you to take care of my kids.”

“Oh. No, I don’t...I don’t know that.”

The hand on his skin traces the curve of his spine. “It was that first day at the cafè, when you said: I’m everything-”

“...you are looking for.” Suga says it with him and suddenly he remembers, the smugness and chagrin that had come after that phrase, the surprise painted on Daichi’s face.

Daichi smiles up at him, warm and fond. “And you were right.”

The weight in Suga’s chest becomes a warm, tender hold and butterflies begin once again to fly in the depth of his stomach. “W-what does that have to do with our discussion?”

He doesn’t care what, he just hopes an answer will distract Daichi from the way he knows he’s blushing.

It doesn’t work. With his other hand Daichi cups his cheek, so he won’t be tempted to avert his eyes, and tells him “You need to be bold.”

“Let them understand that youth is not everything, that youth cannot replace your knowledge or your talent. Let them see just who you are, Sug, and if they have even a shred of taste they won’t hesitate to take you off the market.”

Suga smiles too, before that unwavering trust, before that naked appreciation. “You think that’ll help get me a job?”

Daichi brushes his hair away from his face. “Worked for us, didn’t it?” he says and for that, for everything, Suga can’t not kiss him.

 

 

*

 

Co-parenting is hard. Even when it seems to run smooth, it’s a constant effort to make sure that the children’s well-being, their feelings, their needs are met in the best possible way.

Daichi is lucky in that sense. Since the beginning, when being near each other was salt on still bleeding wounds he and Yurika managed to meet halfway, motivated only by the love for their kids they spoke through smiles carefully carved on faces like masks, they respected times and schedules to the second and kept their fights for when they were alone.

In time, as the bitterness that their separation left in their mouths dwindled to fond memories shared in friendly looks it became easier, much easier, but it will never be effortless.

It will never come natural to Daichi, saying goodbye to the kids, coming home to a quiet, empty house. And as much as he likes to believe that he and Yurika have reached a point in their relationship where they can call each other friends – what they never were before the kids were born – this too will never come natural.

“I fired Suga.”

“What?”

Tense conversations in the storage closet.

He needed help to get a ladder, that’s what he said, and Yurika had offered at once when she’d caught the look in his eyes.

“What do you mean you fired him? Did he do something wrong? Did something happen with the kids?”

“No. _No_.”

He has spoken no more than five uncompromising words and Yurika looks already about to bolt downstairs and ask for explanations for all the neighbourhood to hear. This, people side-eyed him for months after, in their minds he’d given up on his marriage too fast but when communication is the one thing you and your partner cannot seem to achieve then really can it even be called a marriage?

Daichi closes his hand around the doorknob and leans heavy with his shoulder on the door. Anything to keep Yurika from backing Suga in a corner he wouldn’t try to get himself out of.

“I thought we’d established months ago that Suga would never do anything to harm our children.”

Our children. His and whose else?

Sometimes he has trouble remembering it.

The line of Yurika’s shoulders drops, if only just slightly, but the crease between her brows doesn’t disappear. “You said you fired the guy what else was I supposed to think?”

Daichi has to fight every instinct in his body not to roll his eyes to the sky. “Maybe you could have thought that Suga is so busy studying for his Master and trying to find a new place to live that it just wasn’t feasible for him to come here five hours every day?”

“Maybe you could have thought that summer vacations are starting and my mother is more than happy to take care of the kids while I’m gone? Or maybe you could have simply let me finish before jumping the gun?”

Alright, maybe he went a little overboard right there. Yurika confirms it with her “no need to get snippy” but somewhere along the lines the thought of her – of anyone – judging Suga badly, for what he’s not, was enough to make his blood boil.

He gets protective when he loves.

Yurika sighs and rubs the centre of her forehead with her thumb, something she does whenever she’s at a loss of words. A gesture Daichi had found endlessly charming – just like the rest of her – a lifetime ago.

“Sorry,” she says at last, reluctant and stubborn, “you know how I get when the kids are involved.”

Yeah, Daichi just might have a clue, after all he’s exactly the same. And it’s shocking that...that now Suga too inspires that emotion within him. So soon, so strongly.

Daichi gets protective when he loves.

“Are you going to find a new nanny when the summer ends?” Yurika asks after moments of silence and Daichi doesn’t even need to pause to consider it, the idea, the question, the answer.

“No.”

Her gaze sharpens as the letters echo in the stale air and Daichi forces himself to give her more than just his conviction. “No, it’s..we talked about it. Father is retiring this year, and mom will stay here to prepare the house for when he does. She has wanted to leave the country for a while, to be closer to us, and now she finally has a chance to.”

“Besides I don’t think that, that the kids would accept another nanny. Not after Suga.”

It’s not his place in this house anymore, it’s not his role – if it ever really was, for him as for the children – but the thought of coming home to someone else, to a stranger playing with the kids, to a stranger’s polite smile and not that breathtaking beam that warms him to the core...it’s unnerving. Fastidious, unbearable.

“He is...with the kids, he’s been...”

Extraordinary. Everything Daichi was looking for, in every sense, in every way. “And he still tries to come by every day, as you see. So really there is no way we could...”

Replace him. Find someone else that would fit better in the spaces of this house, that could fill it with light even in the middle of a hurricane. There is no way, there is no other.

There is never going to be.

“Damn it Daichi.”

Yurika’s voice comes from miles away, takes time to register in a mind that’s clouded by images of that smile but once it does, that’s when Daichi realizes that through nothing at all he really said too much.

If he’d recited a love poem inspired by the dimple at the corner of Suga’s mouth he couldn’t have made it any more clear.

“Yurika, I...”

He reaches out, to place a hand on her shoulder, to stop her from once again turning on him without reasons – except she does have them now, she has as many reasons to be upset as is the number of kisses he and Suga have shared in this past month – but she backs away and her eyes are hard, the way he only remembers them being behind a paper that felt impossibly heavy and feather light in their hands.

“I told you not to do this. I told you what a fucking stupid idea it was but of course you didn’t listen. You’d rather jump off a plane without parachute than listen to what I tell you!”

“You’ll be heard all the way across Miyagi if you don’t lower you voice!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, am I being inappropriate? Am I acting childish or trying my damned best to jeopardize my relationship with my kids?”

Inappropriate? Childish?

Anger travels, like water in a flood it fills the room to the roof, thrums in his veins along with his blood and suddenly he’s trembling with it, refusing to swim ashore he lets himself drown in it. After the stress of that talk with Nobu-san, the uncertainty and the doubts that came with the realization of his feelings and that he put away, blinded by something that to him was simply too good to ever result in bad, come back again in the form of fire.

“Do you really think that I would risk so much on a whim?”

Yurika starts at the grit in his voice. She probably expected embarrassment, an apology perhaps or shame and if she did she really has no clue just what the fuck she’s talking about. She knows nothing at all, and after ten years – _ten_ _years_ – it seems she doesn’t know the first thing about him.

“Do you think that I jumped into this, that I took one look at him, realized I wanted him and grabbed him like a bloody toy on a shelf?”

“Yurika, for the past four months I did nothing but think of the consequences of this, I did nothing but try to keep myself from getting involved but you know what? Nothing worked. Nothing.”

Nothing worked against the pull he feels, the warmth that spreads in his chest whenever Suga is near. Nothing but giving in.

“So don’t treat me like a kid who doesn’t know what he’s doing. And don’t go around making assumptions when you actually know shit.”

Her mouth tightens but except for a clipped ‘fine’ she says nothing more.

Daichi moves away from the door and lets them both out. The air in the room has become irrespirable, he still feels it in his nostrils, it’s making him dizzy.

He makes his way downstairs and settles near a window, away from the frenzy of activities. The kids are running around the living room to grab the last few things they need and Suga is helping them, bending down to retrieve a shoe that somehow found its way under the sofa, folding their clothes messily and putting them in the bag, smiling.

Daichi has to force his eyes away from him when Kaede asks about his pencil case but once he’s found it they turn back to the delicate slope of _his_ nose, to the curve of his eyelashes, to the mole near his left eye.

His hands begin to shake.

He’s not trying to throw anything away. He is trying to live his life for once, finally. Why do people insist on shitting on the most wonderful thing that has happened to him since the birth of his children?

Why do they give air to their mouths, saying things they have no business even thinking about? And why, fuck, why is he letting this get to him?

“Dad we are going!” Ayame calls him and he hugs her and Kaede tight, kisses their brows, makes them promise to call him later tonight.

“Bye Suga-san!”

He watches as they cling to Suga just as tight as they clung to him and suddenly he’s tired. The most beautiful sight of the world and he’s tired, because people would rather see foolishness, a fling or a moment’s caprice than this.

They will rather get a gossip than witness a person’s happiness.

The kids leave and with them Yurika, and the newfound coldness she reserves to Suga when she says goodbye doesn’t go unnoticed, it serves only to make Daichi all the more furious.

And unfortunately after a wave and more hugs there is only Suga and his mom to witness it.

“Is everything alright, Dai?” Suga asks and the intimacy of his touch in the crook of his elbow makes Daichi’s insides quiver.

He snaps, “yes”, and under baffled stares he walks to the kitchen. To get started on dinner, to give himself something to do.

He chops onions, he makes garlic darken in the pan, he pulps the tomatoes. He’s mincing the meat when Suga and his mother join him, worried creases between their brows and tentative in their gestures.

Without a word they cut some bread to add to the meatballs and pass him salt, eggs and breadcrumbs as he needs them. He hates that they are not forcing him to speak, he hates that they are being so considerate, he hates that he can’t bring himself to be civil.

He hates that he’s still shaking.

From the corner of his eye he catches movement and suddenly Suga is behind him. Instinctively he tenses.

“Your...your apron is a little loose,” Suga whispers between his shoulder blades and Daichi wants to crawl in a hole and never come out. The one person he’s not angry at and he’s giving him the cold shoulder.

But this is what he does when he’s mad. He gets his scary face on and pushes everyone away, yells at them if they don’t leave.

Gentle hands tug at the strings of his apron and tighten them into a knot, then move away without touching him. Daichi aches with it.

“I think you should go,” he manages to say after a while, because everything Suga does is a reminder of why he’s furious and he doesn’t want Suga to witness his ire, be the target of it.

His mother throws him a look and quietly makes her way out of the room, but her gesture is pointless for she forgets to close the kitchen door behind her. Maybe, Daichi reasons, she wants to make sure he won’t screw up.

He’s both irritated by the thought and relieved. He will need that support in...in about three seconds flat.

Suga is shrugging his suggestion off, like he would an annoying flea on a hot summer morning, and instead he gets back to chopping the vegetables for the salad. “No, I don’t think so,” he says.

Stubborn, stubborn man. As stubborn as Daichi is.

His bangs have fallen to frame his face and sway with each gesture he makes, tickle his chin in a way that has him huffing in irritation every two seconds. His apron – the one he hates so much, with ‘kiss the cook’ written on the front – is stained with lime juice and soy sauce. Some of it has even found its way to his cheek. He looks wonderful even like this, warm and cozy. He fits so well in this room, so well in this house.

“I’m not good company today, Sug,” Daichi insists and each word scratches the walls of his throat, comes out rough and scratchy.

Suga stops in the middle of cutting a carrot and when he finally raises his eyes to look at him the copper in his irises looks as if it has caught on fire. Reflecting flames that were born in the inside it makes a breath catch in Daichi’s lungs.

“Do you want me to leave, Dai?” he asks, no teasing or running around, no evasion.

And despite himself Daichi says “No.”

“No, I don’t want you to leave.”

“Then I won’t.”

Stubborn. Stubborn, impossible, bossy. Suga always does whatever he wants in the end.

“But I’m not-” Daichi starts loud, exasperated. He takes a deep breath and continues, lower but just as harsh “I won’t be pleasant.”

It’s stupid how he words it, but the tone with which he says it gives it meaning, truthfulness. He won’t be entertaining tonight. He’s too tense to flirt, he’s too angry to let himself kiss Suga’s lips, he’s too annoyed to even make conversation.

Still. Still, he doesn’t want Suga to leave.

“Tough shit, Sawamura, you think I want to be with you only when you are so charming you could star in a Disney movie?”

And with that Suga gets back to chopping. With that Suga unlocks every corner of Daichi’s heart and lets the light in.

He talks back when Daichi snaps at him at the kitchen table for pouring too much sauce in his plate, he talks with Daichi’s mother when once again Daichi draws back into agitated silence and once they are done eating he sits back and opens a book that looks like it weighs more than he does.

“Is that for your thesis, Suga-kun?”

“For the oral part of the exam, I need to return it in a couple of days so I’m trying to write down and memorize all the central concepts.”

His mother nods, and she looks impressed as Suga explains to her some of the concepts at the basis of his studies, she smiles at the passion with which he speaks of something so natural most people overlook it, the development of language, the way it changes, little by little with every generation until pieces and pieces of it are lost. How people choose to keep a term for centuries and erase another completely for the years to come, invent new ones that soon all understand only for the cycle to repeat itself again.

Daichi listens to Suga’s voice, the natural kindness of it accentuated by his accent, the way it lilts subtly at the end of each sentence as his excitement grows. The persistent drag of his open vowels, that reminds Daichi of a home he left long ago. Slowly he lowers the pressure of the water, till the sound of it falling in the sink can no longer cover the words.

Stooping so low. Fucking his nanny.

Jeopardizing his relationship with the kids. Acting childish, being inappropriate.

Two distinct people who couldn’t have gotten it more wrong, and one of them has known him for ten years. What will the world think once he’s found the strength to hold Suga’s hand in public, in the front yard of the children’s school, before the eyes of the mothers who’d asked Suga to ‘come work for them instead’ at Ayame’s party? What will _they_ think?

And does the answer to this question even matter as much as it’s weighing on his shoulders?

“Yes exactly, Sachiko-san! How did our ancestors even come up with that term?”

“I suspect saké helped them out with that one!”

Suga laughs, that laughter that makes his shoulders shake, that is throaty and unrestrained and beautiful and Daichi has his answer, he always had it. Problem is, worrying is not something he can help.

Not when his children’s feelings are involved, not when Suga’s and his own are at stake.

He sets a plate down to dry with a little too much force, a little too much rush and it chips at the edge, makes a nasty noise that resounds in every corner of the kitchen. Suga and his mother start and ask if he’s alright and he nods with his head sunk between the shoulders.

He throws the plate away, can’t have the kids cutting themselves on sharp ceramic and takes a glass to wash. Silence follows his mistake and he knows, he feels the eyes staring at him.

Without meaning to – he really, really doesn’t mean to – he barks “Come on, you never broke a fricking plate before?”

He’s not supposed to but Suga still answers. “No, not really, I’m more the type to break glasses. Or cut myself like an idiot while washing a knife.”

Yeah. That day Daichi had medicated his palm and the way Suga had blushed throughout the whole operation had been nothing short of delightful. Instinctively the line of Daichi’s shoulders drops from the straight line it was forced into.

“You also like to bang your head against cabinets,” he finds himself saying, out of nowhere, out of place with the atmosphere that just a moment before surrounded him.

“Should I tell your mother of the time you managed to burn butter when all I’d asked you to do was melt it, Dai?”

“I did not burn i-!”

He turns, indignation and delight are making his heart pound inside his chest, and as he meets Suga’s eyes he sees they are glittering, warm and mesmerizing, they are smug. He bites the inside of his cheek and once again he turns back, to face uncompromising white walls and easy, cream-colored cabinets.

He grabs a spoon and the chatter begins again, until time has become strict and Suga has to at least reach the end of this chapter. Then the quiet is water streaming once again fast down the drain, the sound of yellowing, impossibly thin pages being turned and the clinking of crochet needles meeting in another pattern.

And it’s nice.

Uncaring of his mother’s eyes on him Daichi places the last bowl to dry and moves toward Suga. He’s sitting hunched down on his book, his neck a curve, bare just for Daichi’s eyes. Lips pinched in a pout and brows furrowed in concentration he’s so immersed in notions he doesn’t even notice Daichi approaching, not until a hand has stopped on his shoulder.

He jumps.

Daichi caresses the dip that falls between his shoulder blades, follows with no rush the knobs of his spine and when he feels Suga relax once again under his touch, only then he leans down and presses a lingering, open-mouthed kiss on his skin. And after that another, and one more.

Suga’s hands rest on his book, to close it shut. “Walk me to the gate?” he asks.

Daichi looks at the clock, it’s twenty minutes left to midnight.

 

 

*

 

Only when they are outside Daichi tells him.

“Yurika knows,” he whispers in the humid, summer air with once again that anger in his voice.

Suga hates it. “I thought it might be something like that. The way she was looking at me after you two came down was pretty explanatory.”

He tries a smile but it feels wrong on his lips, it stretches his skin too tight. He hadn’t expected Yurika-san to react well to the news, in his head it had gone much, much worse too, the few times he’d dared picture it, but it’s still a bummer. To say the least.

It had taken a while for Yurika-san to accept his presence as her children’s nanny and now...could she ever, truly accept him as her ex-husband’s...boyfriend? Partner?

Other half?

He’s the first who doesn’t know how to define them. He has used it before but boyfriend sounds too small, a high school kids play at love. Partner...partner sounds odd, too formal, too misleading.

And other half, other half is for romantics he never felt part of.

Whatever the case though, whatever the term they choose to use to describe what they are to each other it’s not something Yurika-san could have wanted. Not something she could ever approve of.

“Did you tell her or-”

“No, she understood on her own. All I did was tell her that I fired you and that I have no intention of finding a replacement but...well, apparently I’m pretty obvious in...in the way I talk about you.”

And something in the way he admits it causes a tender kind of heat to spread on Suga’s cheeks.

Together they reach the iron gate and there linger. “So you were mad for...for the things she said?”

“Yeah. I didn’t mean to take it out on you but I- fuck.”

Suga can imagine them, the words she chose to use, and he sees them replay in Daichi’s head, over and over till once again he’s shaking with indignation.

“I thought I did the right thing, firing you, I thought...I don’t know, maybe I thought it’d magically fix everything but it’s not going to, is it? For years I’m gonna have to hear people making lewd jokes about our relationship, implying stuff about you-”

“Let me worry about that, Daichi.”

Suga takes a step toward him instead and when Daichi shakes his head Suga cups his face in his palms. He looks at him, he shakes him himself and the trembling is over. “Let me worry about what they’ll say about me. Because unlike you I don’t give more than two shits what a bunch of snakes with perfectly applied make-up think they know about me.”

Daichi lowers his eyes and circles his wrists with his hands, he tugs gently until Suga has released him from his hold and backs them against the gate, in a hold that’s far much tighter. And Suga understands at once that that’s not all that’s worrying him, that’s not all Yurika said.

Telling him their relationship is inappropriate, implying they are being inconsiderate, it can’t be what’s been troubling Daichi all night.

In fact, there is only one thing that could worry Daichi so deeply, that could cause him to withdraw so far away from him.

“I...I gotta put my children first, Sug. You know that, right?” he whispers so in Suga’s hair and Suga has never heard his voice shake this badly before. “If they take this badly...”

“I know. Daichi, I would never expect you to do otherwise.”

They let their noses touch and their breaths mingle. Suga is shaking too now. “If you did,” he continues and his voice never wavers, “you wouldn’t be the man I’ve...come to know these past few months.”

_You wouldn’t be the man I’ve come to love._

“If the kids take it badly, if they can’t accept it then I’ll be the one to show myself outside, Dai. You won’t have to say anything, I promise, and I won’t be mad at you.”

Leaving is not in his nature but to spare Daichi some guilt he’ll learn the way out of his heart. It’s in his genes after all, somewhere.

“But what if we-”

“If they accept it and then we...we break up we’ll find a way to deal with that too. I know we will. But until then...until then can we please live this?”

_Without expiration date. Fully, the way we want to._

“I know you worry, I’m scared too but I think we deserve to give this a real chance. And we can’t...we can’t do that if we spoil every moment with ifs and maybes.”

Daichi moves apart, enough just for the air to come through and breathes it in. His eyes are shining. “We’ll see how it goes?” he asks and finally he sounds like himself, steady and warm like the earth from which he takes his name.

“Yes, we’ll see how it goes.”

They needed this. More than they needed an official end to a work relationship that never truly began, always spoiled by too much more, they needed this. Allow each other to live this. For as long a time as it’s granted to them, live it outside of the bubble they’d built around themselves.

Suga tilts his chin up and stays still, eyelids hooded and lips parted he waits for Daichi to meet him halfway. It only takes a moment.

They are kissing then, in their next breath, glossy ivy leaves tickling their bare arms with every blow of the wind.

When they separate Daichi is smiling, little but it’s there. Suga presses a lingering kiss on his cheek and turns to make his way home with a lighter heart.

It’s gotta be past midnight now and tomorrow he has one more interview to get through, hopefully without feeling like he has to bang his head against a office elevator wall at the end of it. Besides, he’s sure Onyx is starting to worr-

Daichi’s hands stop him from turning the knob of the iron door, impossibly hot on his waist. “Stay,” he says, he asks, he almost pleads. “For tonight, just...stay.”

Suga closes the gate again, this time though with a hard push.

 

 

*

 

Daichi leads them back inside and his fingers are shaking again as they reach out for the light, now for a completely different reason from anger. He asked Suga to stay, for the night, without the kids or the weather as an excuse.

He asked Suga to stay and now that the guestroom is finally free from all the clutter and his mother is settled in he has no reason to hide on the couch. No reason at all, except his own nerves.

“Suga-kun, you’re back!”

And his mother is still up. She is still up, wearing her satin robe de chambre and a smirk on her face that promises inappropriate questions and jokes tomorrow. Oh boy.

Suga waves shyly at her, after days of easy living he’s blushing and clinging to his bag as if it were a shield and it’d be endearing to see, how small he’s trying to become, if it weren’t for the fact that Daichi feels the impelling need to do the same.

Except he can’t, because this is his mother and between him and Suga he has to be the one to step up and tell things like they are. If it were Suga’s father the person in front of them he’s sure Suga would do the same for him.

_Oh God, Suga’s father..._

Ok no. Not now. One impending doom at the time.

Daichi clears his throat. “Yeah, I, um, I asked him to stay,” he utters in a rush and attempts a casual shrug so tense he nearly pulls a muscle in his shoulder.

His mother looks from him to Suga, then back to him once again and disarming a wide smile finds its place on her lips. “I see.”

No she doesn’t. She really, really doesn’t.

Suga makes a swift escape with the excuse of calling Oikawa, to inform him he won’t come home tonight and remind him not to close Onyx out, and both she and Daichi look after him, in perfect silence till he’s disappeared behind the kitchen door.

As soon as it’s clicked closed though, his mother makes her way to him. Daichi braces himself for the embarrassment of his life – to top even the time she pranced in his room with a pack of condoms and proceeded to show him how to use them – he prays for a quick end to his life, but his mother just stands on her tippy-toes and kisses both his cheeks.

She takes his chin between her fingers and tells him, while looking him straight in the eyes, something he will carry forever with him, through the hardest moments of the fifty years he and Suga will be given to spend together: “I’m glad that you chose to fight for this, my dear.”

“You could have decided to fight against it, but I think that, while maybe easier, wouldn’t have made you even half as happy.”

She boops his nose, the way she used to when he was a toddler and thought it was the most hilarious thing ever, and wishes him goodnight.

She kisses Suga too when he’s finally reappeared, crimson in the cheeks and messy-haired, and she climbs up the steps with light feet, that smile still intact on her face.

They follow suit and the sight of the king size bed waiting for them at the centre of the bedroom, immaculate midnight blue sheets without a crease, is enough to make Daichi blush. Heat pools low in his stomach and slowly it rises, fills every corner of him till he’s almost gasping for fresh air.

What he gets instead are lovely, delicate fingers skimming over his pulse. A voice in the space between his neck and shoulder. “I’m going to need some clothes to sleep in...” Suga says and as embarrassed as Daichi is right now he finds it comforting that Suga seems to be just as tentative. “These jeans don’t really give much room to breathe.”

Yeah, Daichi had noticed.

Daichi always notices.

Breathless he makes his way to the drawer and looks around for clothes not as worn out and used as rest. He hands them to Suga, soft sweatpants and a large T-shirt, and pretends not to wince as the bathroom door falls closed.

He undresses with so much celerity he nearly trips on his pants, then again on his socks, gets his shirt on wrong and has to start again.

He doesn’t know what’s gotten into him, really. He’s been with people before, not that many different people but they all lasted long enough to give him a good amount of experience, and besides it’s not like anything is going to happen tonight.

He just asked Suga to stay because...well, because saying goodbye to him tonight had felt a too heavy thing to do. After what passed between them, after the words Suga said.

He wouldn’t have respected Daichi as a man, if he’d been one to put his children after a lover, even if that lover were to be him. He would step aside not to cause trouble between him and the kids, he would leave without having to be told to. And that tells Daichi everything he needs to know, of the nature of Suga’s heart.

It tells him he’ll be safe giving his own in return, no matter what happens between them.

With these thoughts in mind Daichi couldn’t let him leave but then he door falls open and just as surely Daichi can tell he wasn’t prepared for this. Nothing could have prepared him for how good Suga looks in these clothes, his clothes.

The sweatpants fit too loose on his waist, only the curve of his hips holding them up, and they gather endearingly at his feet, covering almost entirely the watercolour tattoo of the crow but for the last feathers on its wings. The shirt though, the shirt is even worse. Without meaning to Daichi gave him one of his newest ones and it sits so large on his slim shoulders that the neckline of it too is sagging, and baring so much skin in the process.

The line of moles he has along his clavicle.

“Um...”

That’s it, that’s all Daichi manages to say.

Good thing he’s only seventeen years old and at his first romantic experience- oh wait. Not so much.

Suga tugs at the hem of his shirt – Daichi’s shirt- and pouts. “If you had given me Ayame’s clothes I suspect they would have fit me better,” he mutters under his breath. “I don’t get it, you’re not even that much taller than I am.”

“I, um.”

_Words. Make words._

“I n-need to get them in bigger sizes otherwise they won’t...they won’t fit me in the shoulders.”

That’s it. Wasn’t so hard, was it?

Yes, it was. His mouth feels as dry as the desert.

Suga huffs again but he hip-checks Daichi as he walks by, playful and impossibly pretty with that smile on his face – that smile should be illegal in all eight regions, - somehow both endearing and sexy in these clothes that don’t quite fit him.

Daichi’s heart does a somersault in his chest, so sudden he nearly jumps with it, and without thinking he grabs the first sheet he can find folded in the drawer and makes his way to the door.

“Well goodnight, I’ll be on the couch if you need me!”

“On the couch? I don’t think so, Dai.”

Suga wraps his fingers around the fabric of Daichi’s shirt and pulls and pulls until Daichi is simply forced to take a step toward him. He tugs again and the steps become two.

Three, and they are chest to chest.

Suga takes the sheets from him and puts them back in the drawer, carelessly. “You asked me to stay,” he says and he’s still smiling, crooked and so, so alluring, he’s leading them slowly to the bed they are going to share. “I did, so now you have to as well.”

It makes perfect sense. Sound logic, this one.

So they get under the light, linen sheets, Daichi still stiff as a surf board. Suga senses it and he laughs and when Daichi turns to face him he seems to glow in this deep, midnight blue, silver hair a halo around his head and eyes sparkling every hue of gold and copper and brown.

His hand stops on Daichi’s chest and his fingers trace the line between his pectorals, tap playfully on a rhythm Daichi can’t follow. “I won’t bite, you know? Unless you ask me to.”

Daichi’s heart stutters and so close Suga can feel it. His expression softens. “Let’s just sleep, amor mio,” he says and Daichi may not have studied French or whatever language this is but he knows what this means. Of course he knows.

Suga presses a kiss on his bare shoulder and lays his cheek on his chest, in a gesture so sweet even Daichi’s mind settles.

He hits the light with fingers steady and after a single beat circles Suga’s frame with his arms. He falls asleep with Suga’s perfume all around him, his warmth seeping deep into his bones.

 

 

*

 

Suga wakes to dark eyes staring at him. He blinks sleepily at them and burrows deeper in the sheets, in the soft pillow under his cheek.

“Ten more hours,” he pleads and the eyes soften with fondness.

“No can do, Koushi. You have an interview in a few hours and if we hurry I can drive you home to get changed.”

He protests, in his head they are words that form meaningful sentences, words that exceed four syllables even, but the way Daichi frowns at them tells him they probably didn’t come out the way he wanted them to. If, of course, they came out at all.

Might have been just one, dragged long-suffering moan of defeat.

But well, the basic concept is pretty much the same.

Daichi stands and backlit by the sun he really does look like a deity of sort. Handsome and strong – read: so fucking ripped holy shit, Suga gets mouthy in the morning – he draws a perfect silhouette on the wall and Suga can’t really help the sigh that escapes his lips.

“Come on now, Sug. You can take a shower first while I go get started on breakfast.”

He’s gonna make breakfast now, he wants Suga to go shower first. He will drive him home so Suga won’t have to take the train to Meiji and back. Suga wants to marry him.

Daichi grabs his foot under the sheets as he walks by and laughs when Suga tries to kick him and Suga still wants to marry him. One night spent together, not even doing anything but sleep, and he’s already lost his common sense.

Damn it.

He cards his fingers through his hair, it completely covers his neck now it’s gotten so long, and makes his way to the private bathroom Daichi has in his bedroom.

Blue tiles that give way to clear white walls, a double sink in ceramic on which overlooks a long, narrow mirror. A spacious shower on the opposite side and a large tub on the far away wall, the old kind, with charming brass feet holding it up.

Daichi’s choice, that one, no doubt about it.

Suga has been here before of course, but he’s never noticed these things, too nervous to take them in. Today feels like a first time of sorts, in many different ways.

He looks around one last time and undresses quickly. Sweatpants and boxers pooling at his feet he carefully throws them in the hamper, followed along by the shirt and suddenly he’s naked and even though it’s hot, the sticky, humid air of July all around him, goosebumps still break on his arms.

Nerves, awkwardness.

He tiptoes to the shower and sets it warm, but not enough to make the glass fog.

He’s just searching everywhere for the body wash when the bedroom door squeaks open and Daichi’s voice resounds in every corner of the room. “Suga, you already in the shower?”

Suga turns it off at once and doesn’t answer. He waits with bated breath for the sound of steps approaching but the knock on the door still startles him.

“I got you some clean clothes to wear in the meantime,” Daichi is telling him, with his usual care, and it’s obvious now, what Suga wants.

To erase the last of his insecurities, the one that was still holding him back.

He clears his voice and speaks two words. “Come in.”

And Daichi does. A smile on his face he takes a step inside. “I thought you were already in the show-”

Their eyes meet through the glass of the shower and the clothes Daichi had in his hands fall to the bathroom floor with a silent swish.

“Oh.”

Suga stays still before him, naked and wet, completely vulnerable, and lets Daichi look at all his flaws. His hips, a little too round, a little too wide. His inner thighs, soft, and his stomach, far from well-defined. The ugly scar he has on the back of his knee and the scatter of moles he’s always hated.

He lets him look and opens the shower door for him, an invitation as clear as these past summer days.

Daichi swallows, he’s holding on the door knob so tight his knuckles have turned white, but when Suga finally averts his eyes, a stream of curses in his head and so red in the cheeks they feel on fire, he hurries to him.

His head gets stuck in the collar of his shirt and he nearly falls on his face when his boxers tangle in his feet but it’s good, it’s funny. It makes Suga laugh.

They stand for a moment, perfectly still in the limited space of the shower and Suga reads in Daichi’s eyes the same appreciation he knows is mirrored in his own – mixed with something softer, something tender.

It shocks him. It’s all the encouragement he needs.

He pours some soap on his hands and without a word he begins to wash Daichi’s chest.

 

“Your résumé speaks for itself, Sugawara-kun,” Akagi-san tells him with a smile after he’s done reading his files. He’s taken more time with it than others have, asking him of every internship he’s done and the people in the field he’s had a chance to work with.

He’s listened far more thoroughly, it seems, always looking him in the eyes as Suga spoke.

If Suga were born an optimistic person, or better if life hadn’t kind of kicked that quality out of his system, he’d dare so much as think that this was going well.

As it is all he’s doing, really, is trying to squeeze his bag to a leathery pulp.

He gives his thanks to Akagi-san and waits for the inevitable remark that ends all his interviews.

But instead, instead of a remark, what he’s given is a chance. A question he finally knows the answer to.

“Of course I’ve noticed, and taken into account, that you are slightly older than your fellow candidates but I want to know, as you must have noticed it too, what do you think about it?”

“About the years I have compared to the others?”

“Yes.”

Suga looks down, at the briefcase Daichi lent him and that he couldn’t help but accessorize with a sparkly shrimp pin, and the kiss they’d shared this morning before saying goodbye comes to his mind, occupies all the spaces of his brain turned blank with his nerves.

_“Remember what I told you the other day.”_

His words, the touch of his thumb on Suga’s cheek. Be bold.

_Be bold._

Suga takes a deep breath and raises his eyes, to meet Akagi-san’s once again. “I think experience should once again be considered  an asset to a person’s baggage. That’s how I see it, Akagi-san.”

“The years I spent furthering my education and moving around in the backstage of this business were not useless, they were not for nothing. Now more than ever I’m sure this is what I want to do with my life and this certainty I have was born from the four years more I spent squinting down at translation notes, the four years more I spent navigating this colourful world.”

And the grip of his fingers around the bag loosens.

Akagi-san smiles at him at the end of the interview and squeezes his hand in both his own. “We’ll be in touch,” he promises and Suga smiles back.

Even if they don’t, even if Suga doesn’t hear from him again, little it matters in the grand scheme of things because past the line of baby-faced candidates waiting for their turn Suga finally walks holding his head up high.


	33. I and Love and You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love and pain are hard to separate.

In the years Suga has lived away from Miyagi, away from his father and the relief his closeness brings, he’s learned to bear the loneliness. The one that’s rooted deep inside his bones and seems to spread, to make itself heavier and more vivid each time those mountains he grew surrounded by – his mountains - become smaller and smaller through a car window.

Between his studies and all the jobs he’s had, paid and unpaid, he’s always known how to keep himself busy so that nostalgia won’t turn his limbs to stone. He’s found comfort in unexpected people, Tooru above all of course, and slowly that comfort has even turned into happiness.

But now, now that everything is changing – for good and for the better, in ways he cannot predict -  Suga has to wonder if really nostalgia is such a bad feeling to carry within yourself. If keeping pieces of your heart in places so different, so far away from you is a strength instead of a defect.

After all they are there, spread along the mountains and in the streets of the city – somewhere around the world, in a suitcase dragged by regrets – because he loves. Because he’s been touched by sights, by events, by people, and they all have changed his life.

He let them change his life.

That endless meadow of flowers coloured in blood, that he still hides in whenever memories of his mother struggle to make sense, his nana’s house, where he spent his childhood and first understood the importance of a look. His father’s studio, covered in wood chips and paint, and the Karasuno gym, where he first found purpose, where he first found a direction.

His mother leaving, his mother herself took a part of him, along with his father’s smile, and she owns it.

And, well, so does this room.

Soon Tooru and Taka will be forced to see it lived in by someone else but deep down inside of him this will always be his room. The nail holes he did to hang pictures he still keeps tucked between book pages, the desk he chipped at both edges he still has no clue how, the collapsed shelf in the closet, those are all part of him, infinitesimal proofs that he was here.

Before he came here, to the city, he thought...for what had happened to him, he thought for the longest time that but for that he feels for his family he never would have known love.

Now he’s having trouble even leaving a stupid room with stupid teal-coloured walls.

He takes another book from the pile beneath the window sill and drops it in a box, with half laughter and half a sigh. Maybe it’s the old age approaching that’s turned him so sentimental.

Maybe it was hidden in him all along.

The phone buzzes with an incoming message and Suga looks around for a good five minutes before realizing that yes, indeed, he accidentally closed it in a Victor Hugo book. How exactly he’s not quite sure but this wouldn’t be the first time his own messiness baffles him.

He taps it back to life and smiles, just at the sight of the sender.

Man, he really has it bad...

From Daichi:

i think you broke me, sug.

seriously i’ve been over the same three lines of this case for the past two hours but all i can think about is that line of moles you have on your inner thigh

And then again:

remind me, are they three or four?

As if Daichi doesn’t remember that they are five. He counted them himself the other day, while they were naked, alone together in the shower. He tells him to think harder, he tells him his forgetfulness offends him but as he’s typing he’s already lifting the hem of his gym shorts.

He places his foot up, steady on the mattress, and uncovers those innocent five dots that had Daichi stammering and gaping just a few days ago. They are small, on most people they wouldn’t even be noticeable but on his skin they stand out in stark contrast, five simple moles that to hear Daichi say it are more stunning than the Orion belt. He takes a picture of them and sends it with jittery fingers.

The answer takes a while to come.

A simple ‘gods above, suga...’ that has him grinning till his cheeks begin to ache.

He drops another book in the box and with more laughter he throws himself back on bed, startling both Onyx and the little sparrow she had been staring at with dangerous eyes. The little thing, thank goodness, flies off the window sill and away into the early morning sky and Onyx glares at him with not at all subtle fury.

“Oh sorry baby, you wanted to hunt _that_? I had no idea...”

She nips at his forefinger but otherwise she doesn’t reply. Suga will have to make up for this, no doubt, but he would rather spend all his savings on gourmet cat food than find another poor little creature between her tiny but lethal jaws.

His phone comes alive again and his foot taps in delight at the idea of teasing Daichi some more, but it’s not a text, it becomes clear soon, and when Suga fishes the phone from underneath Onyx – the sneaky thing, when the hell did she sit on it? – he finds it’s not Daichi either.

“Dad?”

“Hey, kid.”

It would have been a bummer if any other person had dared interrupt his reveries but at the sound of his father’s voice, the rough quality of it, his strong, unmistakeable Miyagi accent, Suga can’t do anything other than beam.

“What are you doing over there, Koushi?”

“Just took a break from studying to start packing some books, nothing much.”

“Oh, I see.”

His smile turns to laughter at the familiarity of dad’s awkwardness. This man, you see, he’s never quite learned how to talk on the phone, be it with his own son or with anybody else. “Why?”

“It doesn’t seem like a happy activity.”

“Indeed, why would it be?”

Silence, the sound of fabric rustling, and Suga knows at once his father attempted a casual shrug only to remember right after that Suga can’t see him where he is now. “Nothing, just...you had laughter in your voice when you answered. You still do.”

“Oh.”

Trust his father to see right through him, to read his heart even two-hundred miles away, because as pieces of it are spread around the world, to cling on to Suga’s most private memories, one most of all, one most important is tucked safely inside his father’s breast pocket, only for him to feel it beat.

So that Suga would never have to leave those mountains, not really, never for good.

“You were having fun?” dad asks then, innocent, and he implies a thousand things.

Suga bites the inside of his cheek, he tries to reign in that joy that has caused his entire body to turn into weightless longing. “I was talking to Daichi. We were...we were texting, actually.”

A pause, and then a simple “I see.”

His father’s voice has turned unspeakably soft. “And it was happy texting, I gather.”

“Yeah, it was...yeah.”

Suga doesn’t know what else to say. In his mind a million words resound, adjectives that taste of bubbling delight on his tongue, sentences that scatter at the memory of Daichi’s hands on his skin – _‘gentle, they had been so gentle they would so easily turn reverent, tentative but unrestrained...’_ – but before this calm chaos of colours all he is left with is another smile. The knowledge that he is crystal clear.

“Dad, I don’t...”

“It’s alright, Koushi. You don’t have to talk for me to understand.”

He never did.

His father sighs and it echoes in both their ears heavy with resignation and light with a chuckle, relieved, pleased. One more thing Suga doesn’t know: what to make of this sound, what to make of his father’s feelings.

“Dad?”

“He treating you right, kid?”

A question only for the slight inflection at the very end.

Suga looks up to the ceiling, the same old plain white, the first thing he’s seen waking up for the past four years – until the other day, when the first thing he saw was Daichi, only Daichi – and he covers a crack with the pad of his thumb. “Yeah.”

“Yes, dad, he is...”

Wonderful. Smart. Kind, he is so, so kind. “He makes me laugh,” he says at last and it’s so reductive, so ridiculous to say when thousands of pages couldn’t even begin to fit how he feels, that he groans in exasperation.

The arm raised before him falls to cover his face.

His father, for his part, is laughing. Still uncertain with something Suga can’t figure out but amused nonetheless, and it’s unfair because Suga is 100% sure that if there is someone to blame for these bouts of utter, soul-crushing awkwardness that take hold of him at times it’s his father. Tsuneo I-shrug-while-on-the-phone-because-I-forget-people-can’t-see-me Sugawara-san.

“Oh, Koushi...” the man in question utters, still shaky with hilarity. “For Sawamura-kun’s sake I hope you are better than this at sweet-talking him.”

Suga regrets ever answering that stupid phone, he regrets ever thinking that a talk with his father would be as welcome as more salacious texting with Daichi.

“Oh my God, dad, it’s...n-no one uses ‘sweet-talk’ anymore. Jeez.”

More laughter, deeper, unrestrained. Through his chagrin Suga hears himself join.

“S-stop, damn it, it wasn’t that funny.”

“You are right, I’m sorry.”

His father takes in a breath and suddenly it’s calm once more around them. “It feels good to know that some things haven’t really changed,” he says at last, after a pause that has lasted minutes.

“What do you mean?”

The answer too comes slowly, but it comes. “Was thinking about when you were little, that’s all. You were never a chatterbox, mind you, but you’ve always been one to talk when you have things to say. It used to be what happened at school, a good grade you got, this or that toss you made at volleyball practice, light talks at the dinner table.”

“But when something bothered you, you never gave it any mention. You’d complain about a small paper cut but if you were really, truly sick you’d bear it in silence not to make me worry. I guess that’s another small thing you take after me, when you feel something, something deep, I mean, you always go quiet.”

“Oh.”

It’s what Tooru told him, but a few days ago. It’s what his faceless boyfriends used to say about him, to him, before leaving with a slam of the door.

His heart may be everywhere, but it’s so damn hard for him to share it. He never realized he’d made it hard for his father too.

“Koushi?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t think it’s all your fault, kiddo.”

“But I...”

_It took me so long to open up this much._

“To coax a heart out of its hiding place it takes the right people too. If it didn’t feel right with any of those...boyfriends of yours you mentioned from time to time, or the friends you had when you were here then it’s not on you.”

“It has to feel right, Koushi. Otherwise what real meaning does it have?”

A weight is lifted from the heart about which they are speaking and Suga hides his relief behind steady hands. “Spoken like a true Romantic gentleman.”

It’s not all on him. It’s not.

His father hums and gives him a moment of respite before asking the question he meant to all along. “Does it feel right with him?”

This time Suga doesn’t need to elaborate, this time his thoughts are clear. “Yes.”

“Good, that’s good.”

It is, it’s more than good, but then why...

“Why did your voice shake?”

For a moment his father seems to want to argue, deny and move on to safe topics that don’t feel so much as untested waters, but then he sighs, now only resigned, and gives a chuckle that weighs heavy in the air. “I guess I wasn’t ready to hear you admit it so quickly.”

“Not so much coaxing was needed now.”

“Indeed. I’m happy, you know? For you. If...if you are happy then, that’s all I ever wanted, Koushi.”

_I don’t want you to lose faith in love._

“I know, dad.”

“It’s just...going to take some time getting used to, that it’s another man who makes you feel this way. In my eyes you are still that tiny, rose-cheeked kid who used to bring me nuts and oranges from Uchiyama-san’s garden when I’d spend too much time in the basement hunched over a new piece.”

Through the melancholy that those days bring Suga hears a smile in his father’s voice and he matches it quick with one of his own. “I still could if Uchiyama-san hadn’t built that bloody fence around his property.”

“Can you really blame the man, Koushi? You once apologized to him for stealing one of his apples by bringing him lemonade you had made with his lemons!”

“I was six, alright? The concept of property was kind of lost on me then!”

“The concept of cheekiness wasn’t though, that’s for sure.”

They laugh again and Onyx, shaken awake by the noise, meows at the both of them with unrepressed indignation.

His father coughs in an attempt to regain some composure. “Oh my, did I wake the miss?” he asks, and Onyx meows again in answer.

“Yeah, she’s grumpy today.”

“How come? Did Tooru ‘forget’ to let her in again this morning?”

“No, no. After I threatened to cut his hair in his sleep he never attempted it again. No it was my fault, I dared stand between her and a little sparrow she’d been eying...”

“I see, I see. Very rude of you, indeed.”

 

Onyx lets out a long mewl and comes to sit right on Suga’s stomach. She’s not light.

“Ow. Alright, I get it, ok? I’m sorry I let your breakfast fly away. You happy now?”

She isn’t. Her glare doesn’t subside an inch.

“I will buy you that salmon gourmet food you like so much tomorrow.”

She licks her paw and her nails glitter in the placid sunlight. “Today, I’ll buy it today,” Suga amends.

After a moment of tense silence Onyx meows and rubs her cheek sweetly against his tummy.

Suga turns his attention back to his father, who is outright snickering now. “I’ve escaped painful retaliation, I think. For today at least.”

“It’s good to know, Koushi. See that you treat your little lady better from now on.”

“I’ll try, dad.”

They remain quiet for a moment, then his father speaks again, three simple words. “I adore you,” he says.

Suga smiles at the pictures on his desk. “I know. Right back at you.”

“Let me know when you go see some apartments, send pictures if you can and ask the questions I told you about.”

How old is the building, condition of the pipes, safety norms etc.

Suga revises them all and promises to remember. “Talk to you later, dad.”

“Of course. Send my love to the little munchkins and my regards to Sawamura-kun.”

“Will do.”

“And remind him that thanks to my work I own several kinds of saws and know how to use them all.”

“Dad!”

But his outrage gets lost in static, his father has already hung up.

 

He carries the message as soon as he and Daichi are alone, in the lazy quiet of a week-end that’s just for them.

“My father says hello.”

Daichi smiles at the sound of his voice, and wider at his words. “That was nice of him, reciprocate next time you talk to him.”

Sachiko-san left this morning to make sure Daichi’s father has not starved himself in desperation over her absence, these her own words said tongue in cheek, but from the wink she threw both their ways before disappearing inside the cab her reasons were far more generous.

And for this, more than anything else, Suga is unspeakably grateful to her. As big a relief her presence has brought him, and believe him it is such, he has missed having Daichi all to himself these past few weeks.

Time seems to always conspire against them, stolen moments in the laundry room, fleeting looks shared above the kids’ heads, they are not enough to carry him through the weeks. They will never be enough.

But today, today they have it. Time, uninterrupted hours only to themselves.

Today, now, Suga turns another page of the book he’s reading – studying, for his thesis, because even though they have time today, it won’t stop flowing just because he wishes it to - and watches Daichi move around the kitchen, in delightfully tight-fitting clothes and that adorable pink apron he wears every day. He watches and can’t help a grin before the perpetual crinkle of Daichi’s eyes, the smiles he keeps directing at him any time their gazes meet.

He waits for it to happen again and when he manages to hold it with an effective pause and fingers gentle in the crook of his arm, he refers the rest of the message, saws and all.

The rain falls on the window pane, it came as a surprise a few hours ago, after days of looming threat and clouds hanging low on the skyscrapers, and for a moment it’s all that can be heard inside this house.

Daichi pales, his arm stiff beneath Suga’s touch, and stammers out nothing but disconnected words in the minutes after this shock. “What...um...did he really...oh God,” are some Suga catches.

His shoulders begin to shake and soon his whole body follows. He throws his head back and laughs and laughs until tears spring to his eyes. “Oh boy, your face...”

Daichi relaxes, if only a little, and attempts an uncertain laugh himself. “Oh so you...you were joking.”

Suga dabs at the corners of his eyes and his grin becomes twice as cheeky. “No no, he really said it.”

And Daichi’s eyes widen. His jaw goes slack with horror and right away he frees himself of Suga’s hold.

“Oh come on, Dai, he was joking!”

“Well if you say so then I’m reassured. Uh-uh, I am saved.”

“You’ve met my father, he’s the most mild-spirited man in the world.”

“Yeah but you are his only son! For experience, Suga, I know that even the kindest of men could kill for his children’s sake.”

Daichi turns his back to him and cooks the onions in little oil, basis for his sauce. The line of his shoulders is tense still but he’s turned inward, with something more than passing, hilariously irrational fears.

“Daichi?” Suga puts a finger between the pages of his book and closes it with a dry thud. “Daichi, he was joking...”

“It’s not, it’s not that,” comes the reply between whispered curses. Some oil has risen to land on Daichi’s bare forearm.

“Then what is it?”

The answer is not quite what Suga expected. “I know how much your father means to you.”

“Yeah, so?”

Daichi turns just enough for their eyes to meet again, for only a second or less. He shrugs, the way he does when he’s weighed down by things that matter deeply to him. “I want him to like me,” he says and the way he words it is almost childish but his emotion...

The forceful tone, worried and short, sharp, causes Suga’s heart to skip a beat. He cares, he cares so much and for what?

For him, only for him.

Daichi cares about his father’s opinion because he knows Suga does. He wants his father to like him because he knows Suga would suffer if he had to watch them locked in a silent, tense contempt. He cares for him in a way so deep only Suga’s father can match.

He doesn’t realize that really, truly that’s all Suga’s father needs to stand in his corner.

So Suga tells him. “He’s happy about this.”

“What?” Daichi turns again, forgets all about the vegetables he’s dicing.

“He’s happy about this, us, he said so himself.”

“He did?”

“Yes. I told him I was happy and that’s all he needed to tell me he was too.”

Daichi’s eyes turn soft, the warmest brown, and they are crinkling once again. “You’re happy?”

Suga smiles back. “Can’t you see?”

He’s blushing, he knows. His cheeks are warm because of the way Daichi is looking at him now and for a single moment he’s tempted to hide behind his bangs, lower his head and let them cover his embarrassment. In the end though, he doesn’t.

Daichi nods at him and his cheeks are darker too, his eyes bright in a way Suga has never seen them before. “Good,” is all he says. He takes a wooden spoon from the top drawer of the counter and dips the edge in some sauce.

With his hand safely underneath he brings it to Suga’s lips so he can have a taste. “Good?” he repeats, a smile dancing on his lips.

It is. “Yeah.”

“Needs more spice?”

It does. “I would never do this to you, Dai. I know you can’t handle it.”

“I’ll put a bowl of dried peppers next to your plate once it’s time to eat.”

“You’re the best!”

Daichi snorts and goes back to carrots, coriander and tomatoes. “But will that save me from being sawn in half by your father?”

“I’m not sure.”

Now, finally, they laugh about it.

Daichi makes space on the island to prepare the pasta himself and like before Suga watches him. He keeps up the pretence of reading his book but in truth not a single word is registering in his mind. His eyes skim over the definition of hypercorrection and his heart...his heart skips beats at the memory of the heat that had sparked in Daichi’s voice, just moments before.

_I want him to like me._

The pit-pattering of the rain continues, impassive and merciless black clouds have now completely obscured the sun. The only light in the room is given by the modern cut chandelier. Daichi looks up at it when it flickers a second, then with another smile he sprinkles flour on the dough, so it won’t stick to the rolling pin.

The aim, though, is not quite right.

Flour flies everywhere around them and instinctively Suga’s fingers tremble, hidden beneath the cover of the book, as Daichi wipes with his thumb the white spot of powder that had landed on his arm.

Before Daichi can move away – before he can interrupt a contact Suga so badly needs, - Suga takes Daichi’s hand in his own and closes his fingers tight around his broad palm. It’s completely smattered with flour, from knuckles to wrist, and there is dough between the fingers, but it’s as warm as ever, broad and comforting and so, so wonderfully real.

Suga tugs at it and Daichi laughs, he looks at him again with that look of pure, serene joy on his face. Suga never wants to see it fade away.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“What is it, Sug?”

And Koushi says it. “I love you.”

Now he knows how it feels. I love you.

Daichi blinks at him and for a second his hand in Suga’s goes slack, shivers with shock against his hold before clinging to him twice as hard, twice as tight. “Koushi...”

“I’ve never said it before,” Suga continues and it surprises him, just how steady his voice is. How secure he is even overcome with nerves. “I’ve never even felt it before, to be honest, so I don’t know...I don’t know how to say it right, or if there is a right way to say it at all, but I do. I love you.”

He tries a smile, and it comes crooked, shy to his lips. “Is that alright?”

Daichi nods and he smiles too, shaky, yes, but wide. “Yes.”

“Yes, that’s alright. It’s more than alright.”

He walks around the island and stops only before him, so close the tips of their noses are touching with each breath. “It’s pretty damn great,” he whispers, soft on Suga’s lips, and with gentle fingers he tucks his bangs behind his ear, away from his face.

He kisses him once and for hours he never stops.

 

The dough lies where it is and becomes hard and cold on the surface, vegetables and herbs stay on the counter, untouched and forgotten still on the chopping board. The sauce dries and reduces, sticks to the edges of the pan.

And Daichi, Daichi won’t stop kissing him.

He wraps his arms around Suga’s waist and he leaves a trail of flour and dough on Suga’s clothes. “I’m sorry,” he pants when he notices but his lips are still touching Suga’s, caressing his mouth with every letter he utters. Suga shakes his head and moves in closer, to the edge of the stool to chase another kiss.

The book he had been reading falls from his legs and lands with a soft thud on the ground. Neither of them hears it.

Suga parts his lips, around a moan, around more words – Daichi’s name, just Daichi’s name. It’s all he can remember, - and Daichi deepens the kiss. His hands close into fists around the fabric of Suga’s shirt and slowly he strokes the inside of Suga’s mouth with his tongue, he nibbles at his upper lip. He shivers with every moan that escapes them.

And Suga, Suga holds him. Fingers delving in the flesh of Daichi’s shoulders he tries to make sense of the thousand things he’s feeling but every touch he and Daichi share kindles more. A chaste caress at the bare skin of his waist is enough to make his stomach quiver and tremble like the chord of an harp, the accidental brushing of Daichi’s knee against his own causes his whole body to tingle.

And it’s so much, so much, too much for him to handle and yet not even close to what Suga really wants. And he wants everything now, everything, whatever it entails he wants it all because now that he’s said it, now that he’s seen just what love looks like – gentle, calloused hands, dark eyes, honest, too wide smiles – it’s taking over every corner of his mind.

He loves. He loves someone that is good, someone that is worth the countless sleepless nights that came when he was still in a position where he could deny himself, he loves and he’s said it.

Against Daichi’s lips he smiles and slowly, slowly he pulls apart, away to meet those eyes again.

“Daichi...” he calls his name once, and his smile widens when goosebumps break on Daichi’s skin, when the brown of his irises darkens still.

He takes Daichi’s hand from where it’s clenched tight around his hipbone and brushes away the last of dough and floor that still cling to it.

“I’m sorry,” Daichi tries to say again, but Suga shakes his head before he can say more. This is not what he’s trying to do, an apology is the last thing he wants right now.

He brings the back of Daichi’s hand to his lips instead and under that dark, wild-eyed stare he kisses it, once. Then he places it on his stomach, down, underneath his shirt, where the last two buttons have given way.

Skin on skin.

Daichi stays still for a moment, then two and soon it becomes a minute, the arms of the clock tick with the rhythm of Daichi’s pants.

“Suga...”

The tips of his fingers curl and uncurl on the softness of Suga’s tummy and just as Suga is considering getting embarrassed over it – the softness, the way his muscles disappeared after he stopped training – Daichi’s thumb traces the shape of his navel, feather soft and gentle.

Suga’s breath hitches, in his lungs, in his throat it burns. Daichi repeats the motion, still soft, still so unbearably gentle and it tickles, in the way that sparks a flame behind Suga’s closed eyelids.

He didn’t know this was a thing that he liked. All he wanted was for Daichi to touch him, the way they both wanted to, he didn’t know...

A sigh escapes his lips and in the next rush of breath he’s on the counter, sitting on a sea of flour with Daichi’s chest pressed hard on his.

“Dai-”

Chapped, insistent lips attach themselves to his neck and suddenly words become futile. Everything does but for the way their bodies are becoming attuned to one another.

Daichi kisses the lobe of his ear and Suga turns to the side, to give him more access. Daichi kisses it again, then, without warning he nibbles it, a simple grazing of teeth that causes Suga’s hand to spasm in pleasure where it’s lying on his shoulder. Daichi notices, of course he notices, and he does it again.

“Daichi...”

Suga’s hands find place in Daichi’s hair and he tugs and tugs till Daichi is moaning in sync with him, till their lips have met again in a kiss that tastes dizzy as yearning.

Without a word he spreads his legs and pulls on Daichi’s shirt so that he’ll stand between them, even closer than before, closer than they’ve ever been. Against his inner thigh Suga feels Daichi harden and laughter bubbles in his chest, euphoric.

Daichi is hard for him. He’s known for a while now that Daichi doesn’t just find him cute, unlike some boyfriends Suga’s had, those who got scared or started whenever he expressed his sexuality because ‘baby, I wasn’t really expecting this from you’, Daichi wants him.

Daichi finds him attractive. And men that  look the way Daichi does, as if they belong in a dream or in a movie shot in black and white, they...they never do. They never did. So it’s heady, everything about this day has been heady.

Unexpected, wonderful.

Suga bites playfully at Daichi’s chin and chuckles for the way Daichi has to go cross-eyed to glare him down. He traces burning, wet lines on the column of his throat, with his mouth and with his teeth and beneath his fingertips Daichi’s chest rises and falls, irregular with the moans Suga is forcing out of his lungs.

He reaches the collar of Daichi’s shirt, the strings that hold up his apron and tugs them both off at once. The apron lands in a pile to their feet, next to the book Suga doesn’t even recall the title of, but the shirt is thrown away in a haste and it now dangles sadly from the faucet of the sink, one sleeve quickly darkening with water.

“Ooops.”

“It’s an old shirt,” is all Daichi has to say about it, focused as he is on palming the curve of Suga’s hips he may not have even noticed the fact that now he is half naked before Suga’s eyes.

And boy, what a sight that is.

Suga settles his hands on his shoulders and slowly he follows the wide, perfectly straight line of them, the contour of muscles that contract, instinctively, under his fingertips, the hard planes and curves of a body that was cultivated with genuine effort and care, not to strive to impress.

The breadth of his chest, wonderful and such that Suga can splay his hands on his pectorals with ease. The line of his abs, taught but not defined to the inch, thick waist and flesh that gives away with surprising ease under his touch.

Suga is sure his eyes must be sparkling now.

_Love handles._

 Or at least the beginning of them. Suddenly it’s getting hard for him to breath, the heat under the collar of his shirt has gotten overbearing. “You...God, Daichi.”

He shakes his head and traces again with his eyes the places his hands had visited. Tanned skin, warm as it looks, coarse black hair, sparse all over his chest but delightfully present all over. He sees them disappear beneath the hem of Daichi’s jeans and with a single finger he follows.

With a flick of his wrist then, he turns his hand and palms at Daichi’s cock.

“Fuck, Suga...”

Daichi’s hands tighten on his hips, knead at the soft flesh there to find a balance, a firm spot as he throws his head back in pleasure.

His cheeks are flushed, even with his olive skin it’s visible, and he’s so...

He is so...

“You are hard.”

Fully now, in Suga’s hand, and he’s trembling. “Yeah, well...”

Daichi laughs. It’s shaky, deep as the rumbling of the ocean. “You can’t, _ah_ , you can’t blame a guy when you look like that, Koushi.”

_Him?_

“Me?”

When _he_ looks like that?

Are you kidding?

Daichi smiles, crooked and a little dark, and circles Suga’s wrist with his hand. “Yeah, Suga. You.”

He moves his hand away from him. “Only you.”

And he kisses Suga again, strangely chaste, predictably tender. “Now,” he says, “this isn’t fair, you are overdressed.”

His fingers stop on the first button of Suga’s shirt. “Can I take this off?”

He asks.

Suga swallows down his thundering heart and says yes, he nods when his voice fails him.

Daichi undoes every button with care, he takes his time, as if this were the first time they are seeing each other naked, as if he’s giving Suga time to back down.

Except it isn’t, except Suga doesn’t want to back down.

He meets Daichi’s eyes again when his shirt falls, first from one shoulder, then entirely, he never looks away. “I love you,” he says.

Now that Daichi knows too, he doesn’t want to stop saying it. Not when he’s feeling it so true inside his chest, not when Daichi’s eyes shine like that because of it.

Daichi’s lips press on the dip of his collarbones. “Will you say it again?” he asks and Suga repeats it, “I love you.”

I love you.

And Daichi lets out a laugh, soft and deep from his belly, he kisses along Suga’s clavicle between wide, elated smiles. He’s never looked more gorgeous than he does in this moment. And Suga wants him, he wants him with every fibre of his being.

He circles his wide, gorgeous shoulders with his arms and right away Daichi lifts him up.

“Are you really going to carry me all the way upstairs?”

“Yep.”

“You are such a goof.”

“Hey, if I put you down and let you walk on your own that’ll mean lots less touching than this.”

Suga hides his laughter in the crook of Daichi’s neck but it still echoes in the insignificant space between them. “Ok, so you’re a sappy goof,” he concedes at last.

Daichi agrees only with a lovely kiss on the curve of his shoulder and in silence he leads them both upstairs.

 

The sheets are soft on the bare skin of his back and Suga laughs when Daichi nearly throws him on them, eyes impossibly dark and dancing in the suffused light coming from the clouds.

For a moment he just stands there, still at the edge of the bed and looks. His gaze travels, starts from the tips of Suga’s toes and up to his ankles, his still clad calves and thighs and it darkens still as if the stretchy fabric of the jeans bothers him. Suga takes them off himself, slowly, he wants to say it’s to tease Daichi a bit more but in truth these jeans are damn tight.

Daichi makes no move to help him and with each new strip of skin that is revealed – pale and pasty and scattered with moles – his breath becomes harder. The pants are thrown quickly on the chair in the corner of the room and only then Daichi comes to him, kneels on the mattress once again between Suga’s parted legs.

He puts a hand on the back of Suga’s thigh and raises it, just enough to press an open-mouthed kiss on his knee, right where the scar tissue is. He continues, up and up his inner thigh and still he looks, he looks at Suga as if he can’t quite believe his eyes.

Suga doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get what about him could warrant such a look, from a man like Daichi, who is handsome and sought-after, who has been with two of the most attractive women Suga has ever met, but he likes it. He likes the image of himself he can see reflected in Daichi’s eyes.

Daichi stops by the hem of Suga’s underwear and his face brightens suddenly. “Found them,” he says, he sounds so ridiculously pleased with himself. He nuzzles the softest spot of Suga’s inner thigh and kisses him once, twice, five times, close-mouthed and hard, as if to prove a point.

“You had me losing my sleep,” he mutters in his skin, bites on his flesh hard enough to elicit a whimper.

Suga’s eyelids flutter closed as sparks of gold and white appear everywhere around the room and in the silence he feels his heart racing, hard inside his chest and impossibly loud in his ears, so fast he can’t even count the beats. Heat pools low in his stomach.

“ _Daichi_!”

He throws his head back on the pillow as Daichi bites him again, in the same spot as before, and Daichi continues, he nibbles and sucks until Suga is left panting, a wreck on the mattress, lips parted around moans that won’t stop coming.

His legs tense, they close around Daichi but he still doesn’t stop, not before a small, red mark has appeared on Suga’s inner thigh, between the moles Daichi seems to like so much.

“Are you, um,” words are hard to come out. “Are you gonna do that for e-every mole you see?”

Daichi smirks at him and moves up, to rest his chin on Suga’s stomach instead. “Not today,” he says, and presses a quick kiss on a mole near Suga’s navel.

Another on the small one on his hipbone, almost completely hidden by the elastic of Suga’s boxer briefs, and then one more for that at the centre of his stomach.

“They are so many...” he whispers and his breath cools the spots of wet that his kisses left.

Suga shivers. He drags Daichi into a kiss, one he can participate in too, and it’s hot and impatient and more than a little dirty. He licks into Daichi’s mouth with force, and with purpose he sets a rhythm that soon has Daichi moaning too inside his mouth and grinding slowly, unconsciously against him.

Suga raises his hips and meets him halfway. His hands curl on Daichi’s waist and guide him to slower movements, in synch with his own and they rock against each other, never-ending like the rippling of the waves, to meet only at the peak.

Again and again and again...

“Suga. Fuck, Suga...”

Daichi calls his name, over and over, on his lips, in the crook of his neck, wrecked in his ear and Suga’s fingers tremble on the buttons of his pants.

“Take ‘em off,” he orders, suddenly sharp, and Daichi’s cock twitches under his palm.

_Oh._

 He never would have expected that from a former captain, getting turned on when being given orders. Suga bites back a smirk and watches as Daichi struggles with the zipper.

Thick, tanned thighs come into view. The solid muscles underneath flex with even the slightest movement Daichi makes and suddenly Suga’s throat is as dry as the desert. He hooks his fingers in the waistband of Daichi’s boxers and after a shared look and a quick nod he tugs them down as well.

_God._

“God...”

That day in the shower, as erotic as it had been getting to see Daichi completely naked before him, it hadn’t been about that. Their touches had turned daring, low at times but they had lacked all purpose, anything that wasn’t the search for intimacy.

Now, now it’s different and Daichi makes such a stunning view Suga has to give the order to his lungs to breathe out again.

He takes a second to drop the underwear on the floor and then his hands are on Daichi again. First tentative on his waist, then slowly they move down, down to trace the line of Daichi’s pelvic bone and down still following the trail of black hair that had teased Suga for so, so long.

Suga swallows down momentary nerves and gives another order. “Look at me.”

Daichi does.

As soon as their eyes meet Suga curls his fingers around his cock and strokes him. He sets a slow pace, fingers not too tight and wrist loose and stares into Daichi’s features to capture any response, any reaction that might give away what he likes.

He thumbs the tip of Daichi’s cock and Daichi’s breath falters. He squeezes tighter and Daichi’s jaw clenches, he loosens his hold again. He sits up, to be closer to him and starts to kiss his neck in time with the jerks of his hand.

Daichi is hot under his lips, he’s trembling like a feverish man but when his hand comes to cover Suga’s where it’s still closed around him his touch is firm.

“Like this,” he tells him and Suga moves a little faster, touches him a little more sure.

Until Daichi stops him again. Precome trickles down his fingers and he lets Daichi moan in the crook of his neck, he lets him tremble against him. Last, he lets him take his hand away and squeeze it tight in his own.

“Not...I don’t- I don’t want to come now,” he tells him and his voice is as dark as his eyes, gives out and cracks on every word.

Suga nods and tips his head up to kiss his temple, his cheek, his chin. “Alright, my love.”

He makes to move away and Daichi stops him, hands firm almost to the point of pain on his elbows. “No, where are you...”

Suga laughs. “Just getting some lube, Dai. And condoms.”

“Oh. Of course.”

“Where do you keep them by the way?”

Second drawer of the nightstand to the right, under manuals and manuals on how to build this and that piece of furniture. Suga throws a skeptic look behind his shoulders but all Daichi does is shrug. “When you have kids you need to hide these things well.”

Suga wouldn’t know. His collection of dildos, strap-ons etc. occupies two whole drawers, nothing else would fit to hide them underneath. He tells Daichi so and the blush that’s been colouring his cheeks for the past five minutes spreads fast to his neck and chest as well.

The pack of condoms he throws on the bed but the lube stays in his hand. It’s a new bottle, still with plastic wrapped around the cap.

“I, um, I bought it when we started...dating.”

“Very presumptuous of you.”

“How can you say that when you are naked in my bed?”

Every sentence is a struggle to Daichi, who is still hard and leaking and breathing fast so Suga chooses, for once, not to argue. Technically he’s not naked yet, not completely, but instead of pointing it out he stands and with Daichi’s eyes fixed only on him he takes off his underwear.

He lets it slide, slowly, off his legs and pool at his feet and then he kicks it playfully behind him. Daichi doesn’t laugh, nor he cracks a smile. He’s trembling even harder now, his fingers are shaking when he reaches out. Suga places his hand on his outstretched palm and comes into his arms once more.

“You are...you are so...”

There is no end to this sentence, not one that Daichi is capable of giving. His hands roam over Suga’s body, as if they are not sure what part of him they want to touch, caress, worship first. His palms glide over the line of Suga’s waist, they follow the way it spreads into – too – curvy hips, and again they rise to trace his spine, thumb at his shoulder blades. “You are...”

Suga kisses his lips in thanks. He understands, whatever it is Daichi is trying to say he understands, because pressed tight against each other their hearts are beating to the same, wild rhythm.

Blindly he takes the plastic off the cap and opens the bottle of lube.

“Sit with your back against the headboard, captain,” he says and when Daichi does, without a moment of hesitation, he straddles him, legs on either side of his waist.

“Suga?”

Then Daichi calls him, uncharacteristically quiet and Suga stops fiddling with the bottle to look at him.

For the first time today he reads nervousness in the creases between his brows. “What is it, Dai?”

“I, um...”

Hands start to massage his waist. “I haven’t done this in a while. With a man, I mean.”

“Oh. How...how long, if I can...?”

“Ten years? Eleven, maybe.”

Holy shit. “For real?”

Daichi flushes – an answer in itself - and the crease becomes deeper. Suga places a kiss on it to smoothen it again, he jokes, so Daichi will relax once more. “Don’t worry, captain, I’ll be gentle with you.”

And it works. Daichi does glare at him but the scowl on his lips disappears soon before another kiss.

“Do you want me to prepare myself?”

“No, no I want...”

Suga nods and smiles just for Daichi and his eyes must give away something, a certain tenderness that by him is not easily shown, because Daichi’s blush deepens and his hands are more unsteady than ever when they reach for the lube.

And now, Suga would lie if he said he’s not a little nervous too. When you’ve wanted something for so long, when you’ve dreamed it coated in pinks and overwhelming perfection it’s hard to accept that reality cannot meet those standards, that he could not meet them.

He searches for Daichi’s eyes again and together they move in for another kiss, just a meeting of lips, lingering, that never deepens and ends with them simply breathing, sharing the same warm, summer air.

Suga takes his wrist in his hand and guides Daichi inside of him. One finger, then two, cold with lube at first but then hot, impossibly hot and wonderful stretch him slowly, with infinite care, and for each movement made Daichi whispers in the curve of his jaw.

They are words Suga can’t understand but they are tender, he knows they are, and they are warm on his skin, leaving invisible marks deep in his bones.

Suga closes his eyes and his hips move, imperceptible, with every thrust they follow the rhythm of Daichi’s fingers. His nails dig into the flesh of Daichi’s shoulders but when Daichi asks if they need to stop he shakes his head.

“No, no.” And he asks for another finger.

The heat becomes unbearable for a second and so does the way he’s being stretched but then Daichi shifts, he moves and the angles changes and suddenly there are fireworks, golden and red, going off behind Suga’s eyelids.

His nails threaten to break skin. “Daichi,” he whispers and his voice breaks before he can demand more.

Daichi understands anyway. He drags the sheet to bring the box of condoms near and Suga grabs them so fast the paper crunches beneath his hold. He couldn’t care less.

He takes a condom and breaks the thin envelope, then he moves back and puts it on Daichi himself. Daichi moans, for the sight maybe or for his touch he’s not sure and their gazes lock again. They share another kiss and neither of them closes his eyes.

Daichi’s fingers leave him and for a moment Suga is cold, empty and cold in the heat of July and he whimpers. He props himself up, steady with his hands on Daichi’s – gorgeous, solid, wide – shoulders and slowly he starts lowering himself down on Daichi’s cock.

At first touch they both moan, then it’s only Daichi because the little air that was stored in Suga’s lungs is gone, pulled out of him by a soft, dull pain.

“Fuck.”

Daichi’s fingers are much thicker than his own and they had felt so good stretching him so carefully but now, shit, now it’s something else. His eyes close again, tight with the furrowing of his brow and his teeth bite down his lip to keep another whimper from leaving him.

Fuck.

He inches down more and forces himself to breathe, breathe, breathe.

Just breathe, don’t fuck it up. This is Daichi don’t fuck it up.

“Koushi...”

Daichi’s voice, soft in his ear.

Warm hands – Daichi’s hands – settle on his waist and they stroke him, his hips, his back, they caress his stomach and trace his navel and Suga focuses on that. He focuses on Daichi’s voice, on his heartbreakingly gentle touch.

“Koushi. Koushi. You are so beautiful, you are so beautiful.”

His whole body is tingling, and hot, so hot once again.

All for those words, all for Daichi.

He draws in a breath and drops his hips, he moves down on Daichi until there is no more to take and when he hears Daichi curse through miles away he opens his eyes again to witness this moment. Wholeheartedly, he’s here.

He’s here with him.

He sees Daichi flush all the way down his neck, he sees his chest heaving with deep, laboured breaths and he runs his fingers through his hair, with the gentleness Daichi has taught him. “Daichi...”

Without saying another word he asks for a kiss. Daichi gives it to him and then he gives him a thousand more. Open-mouthed kisses on his clavicles and neck, lingering on his lips as they start to move together.

Slowly Suga hoists himself up and Daichi wraps his arms around his waist, in an embrace so tight there is room only for their hearts to run wild.

No one has ever done this before, holding Suga this way while they were fucking.

“Koushi,” Daichi says his name one more time, a prayer made in the dip of his collarbones.

Suga smiles. No one ever called him by his given name. He rocks his hips in a lazy pace and Daichi thrusts upward to meet him, with no rush, with no forcefulness.

Fucking, is this what it is?

No, of course it’s not. Suga has done his fair deal of fucking in his life and nothing, not even his first time – that had been his most tender moment, the least hurried – had ever felt like this. Nothing ever came close to this.

Daichi’s eyes are almost black now and in them Suga sees reflected the brightness of his own. He moves above Daichi, he tightens around him and smiles when Daichi’s flutter close, just for a moment in this utter bliss.

For it doesn’t hurt anymore, it doesn’t hurt a bit. Or maybe it does but through all this warmth, this cocoon of contentment that Daichi built with his touch, Suga simply cannot feel it.

Daichi shifts to chase that angle and thrusts into him again. His hands come steady to the base of Suga’s spine and when he moves this time, pushes inside of him he does it with purpose.

A jolt of pleasure, like electric discharge, runs up Suga’s spine. His vision turns cloudy at edges, faint but for the neat contours of the face a breath away from his own.

Daichi tightens his hold on him.

A hot kiss on his throat he buckles up and pushes into him, again, again. Relentless. Suga throws his head back and moans, high and breathy and embarrassingly long but just as he’s trying to regain some wits Daichi moves once more into him.

And Suga...Suga surrenders.

Forgotten all rhythm his hips snap without control, they rock on Daichi’s lap guided only by sheer instinct – and need, fuck he needs...- but somehow they still manage to meet his thrusts.

“Daichi, fuck, Daichi...”

He’s lost, completely lost in this, he barely registers his fingers tugging sharply at the short strands of Daichi’s hair, he doesn’t remember the words he’s only just uttered but he kisses Daichi. On his lips, on his cheeks, on the tip of his nose, everywhere he covers him with kisses.

Every inch of him Suga can reach, with a thousand kisses.

“Daichi, Daichi, Daichi...”

Daichi lifts him up and lays him down on the mattress and the angle changes again and it’s even better because now every part of them is touching and it’s so hot, it’s so hot it should be unbearable but Suga loves it, he loves...

His legs locks around Daichi’s waist and Daichi is drawn in even deeper. His hands close around the sheets, they fist them hard enough to leave wrinkles and tears in the fabric and he groans deep inside his chest. Suga feels the vibrations of sound in his own chest.

The beating of Daichi’s heart, he feels it everywhere inside him.

“Koushi.”

Daichi kisses away the sweat from Suga’s temple and searches for his hands. They find each other, still, even in the daze of pleasure and their fingers interlace, palm on palm, they are joined so tight they have turned white in the knuckles. Daichi brings them on either side of Suga’s head, and he never stops moving, he never stops.

His whole body is trembling now, above Suga’s.

He calls his name, nuzzles his cheek. Last he kisses the mole near his eye. “You are...”

“Koushi. You are everything.”

He kisses him between his brows. “Everything,” he repeats and with this word in his ears, this single, wonderful world, Suga comes.

His eyes close to the warmth in Daichi’s eyes – adoration, adoration, his heart supplies – and he whispers Daichi’s name, over and over between moans, as the world collapses around him, explodes only to be built again.

The same and yet completely different, changed to its very core.

Suga looks at it and he doesn’t recognize it. But he recognizes this face, so impossibly dear to him.

He frees his hands from Daichi’s hold and cradles it in his palms, this dear face that’s smiling, flushed only for him. He cards Daichi’s hair back, away from his forehead and collects beads of sweat with his thumb, he strokes his cheekbones.

“Daichi.”

“Yes.”

He kisses his lips and watches Daichi move again inside of him. Hard, wild and perfect. He moves with him, through his own exhaustion, and welcomes him every time.

Daichi’s abs graze his stomach at every contact and his hair tickles Suga’s skin. Suga laughs, he can’t help it, shallow and breathless and Daichi stares down at him with pupils blown wide.

Mid-thrust he stops and his body shakes like a leaf in the wind with the effort. He gives no answer to Suga’s questions except for laboured pants.

He reaches out instead and with a finger he moves a lock of hair away from Suga’s face. He tucks it behind Suga’s ear.

Then he’s moving again, like nothing happened, and his eyes never look away from Suga.

Suga lets him. He smiles for him, imperceptible but for the crinkle of his eyes and Daichi notices. He thrusts one last time into him and then he’s coming, Suga’s name a prayer on his lips.

“Suga.” And then, “Koushi. _Koushi_.”

Suga wraps his arms around him and guides him to rest on his body. Like this, cheek to cheek they wait for their hearts to slow down the pace.

 

It takes days for Suga to remember how to speak. Or maybe it was mere minutes, he’s not sure anymore of what’s going on outside this room.

“You are still inside of me,” he whispers in sweaty, jet black hair.

Daichi turns his face a little and nuzzles his cheek, he sighs in the curve of Suga’s neck. “I never want to leave,” he admits at last in another quiet moment and oh, Suga would let him.

If it didn’t sting so much Suga would spend his life like this, being one with Daichi, nothing in the world to separate them. But as it is, as the pain is prone to linger more than pleasure ever is, he unlocks his legs from their embrace and watches Daichi prop himself up.

He winces when Daichi finally pulls out and whether it’s from the pain or the sadness of letting him go, he can’t make it out. Daichi relieves the sting though, the way only he knows how, first with a kiss on his knee, then with his next words, whispered so low Suga probably wasn’t meant to hear them at all.

“I never want you to leave.”

And now the emotion that blossoms in Suga’s chest is clear.

As soon as Daichi is done disposing of the condom he wastes no time reaching for him again, for another embrace, another moment of closeness.

Daichi smiles. Eyes cast low he takes Suga’s hand in both his own and presses a single kiss on his finger.

His ring finger.

Then he comes to lie on Suga again, resumes his place in Suga’s arms.

 

Suga wakes alone, upside down in a cold bed to a sky coloured purple with clouds.

The sheets were made again to cover him, by Daichi, no doubt, but when Suga looks around for him he doesn’t find him. The bathroom door is open, no noise comes from inside that suggest Daichi might be there.

Silence, only silence.

Suga stands and grabs Daichi’s shirt from the pile of clothes scattered around the floor. He puts it on with steady fingers, - for Daichi wouldn’t, he wouldn’t... – and hurries downstairs to look for him.

Daichi wouldn’t leave. He knows that, he’s sure of it, but it was so damn cold in that bed. The skin of his arms is prickled with goosebumps, he rubs at it with his palms but they are cold too and he doesn’t know...

“Hey.”

...where Daichi is.

“I thought you’d be out all afternoon.”

Daichi lifts his head from the counter and grins, wide and goofy and sweet.

He’s wearing only his pants and the ridiculous apron Suga took off of him just a few hours ago, and his hands are once again covered in flour. “I tried to roll the dough I made earlier but it was unsalvageable.”

He straightens and pulls Suga closer, till their foreheads are resting gently together. “We left it too long on the counter...”

In his arms Suga is warm again. “ _You_ did, it was your responsibility to think about it.”

“You’re right because _I_ was going to be the only one to eat it.”

Daichi nips at the curve of his shoulder and Suga laughs against his cheek. He tries to dart away when Daichi starts to palm at his waist but Daichi traps him between his body and the counter, wearing a smirk on his face that promises nothing good.

“Maybe I should eat it all by myself.” He pinches a ticklish spot near Suga’s hipbone. “If it’s my responsibility I think it’s only fair.”

His fingers dance along Suga’s waist and even through the fabric of the shirt Suga is writhing with breathless laughter in less than a minute.

“No, no,” he tries to say but Daichi is merciless.

“No what, beautiful?”

“No, stop t-ah!”

He’s red and panting, boneless against Daichi’s body and yet he can’t stop laughing. His heart is beating fast at the closeness they are once again sharing.

Only his phone ringing saves him, all the way across the living room it comes alive just as Suga is ready to admit bittersweet defeat.

“Saved by the bell, Sugawara! But don’t think this is over!”

Suga runs away from his hold and shows him the tongue. He answers without even checking the caller. “Hello?”

“Hello, am I speaking to Sugawara Koushi-kun?”

“Yes, this is him.”

“Oh good, good. I wasn’t sure I had the right number, you kids change phones so quickly. This is Akagi-san, from Hikarikage Publishing.”

_Oh._

“Oh.”

In a second Suga’s stomach ties itself into taut knots. He places a hand on the back of the sofa to steady his legs and clears his throat, forces all the laughter from before to leave his voice. “Good evening, Akagi-san.”

At the mention of that name Daichi steps in closer.

“Good evening, Sugawara-kun. I’m sorry for the unusual hour but I just came out of a long meeting and didn’t want to delay this any further.”

_Please, please, oh please tell me now._

_Whether I got it or not tell me now._

“My colleagues and I, we stalled a while on a decision that was, quite frankly, obvious but I won at last.”

Akagi-san’s tone is light, promising of something good. Suga’s nails dig into the fabric of the sofa, he doesn’t dare to hope. Not until he hears those words, not until then.

“So if you want, Sugawara-kun, and once you’ve obtained your Master’s degree, we’d be more than happy to have you in our team.”

There it is.

All the air leaves Suga’s lungs. “Are you...” – _kidding_ _me_ – “I mean, really?”

Akagi-san laughs in his ear, warm and thunderous. “Absolutely. There was no better choice.”

_No better choice._

In a daze Suga listens to his praises and answers to his chatter, he wishes him a good evening and thanks him over and over, out loud and in his head but as soon as they’ve hung up he throws his phone on the sofa and runs into Daichi’s arms, that are already open wide for him to fit into.

“I knew it, I knew it!” Daichi laughs in his hair, he lifts him up from the waist and spins him around the room, once, twice, till they are both dizzy with it. “I knew someone would appreciate you exactly for who you are!”

Suga smiles in his neck. _I_ _didn’t_ , he thinks to himself and he holds on to Daichi tighter. _I didn’t think it was possible, not until I met you._

“Thank you,” he limits himself to say.

_Thank you._

_I love you._

Daichi shakes his head. “This was all you, Koushi. All you,” he says and takes him in a kiss that turns his knees to jelly.

He strokes his hair, holds him so wonderfully tight against his chest and in his arms Suga feels warm, Suga feels right.

He never wants to leave this place.

 

In hindsight he should have expected it.

Everything was going so well, chaotic as it has been lately everything was coming together at last. His thesis, a job that is waiting only for him, the kids and the smile in their voices when he and Daichi call to wish them goodnight.

Daichi.

Everything is good, too good and Suga should have known it couldn’t last.

He comes home that night with the taste of Daichi’s skin still on his tongue. Walking on clouds he closes the front door behind him and smiles, smiles at the way Daichi just wished him goodnight, in his ear, with a kiss on his lips that’s left them tingling, he smiles at the memory of his touch, chaste on his waist, impossibly hot inside of him.

He smiles and as soon as his eyes meet Tooru’s from the other side of the kitchen, Tooru cackles. He puts his forefingers in his mouth and whistles, obnoxious and loud.

“Congratulations Kou-chan!”

Suga laughs, he doesn’t even consider throwing a shoe at him and that, more than anything, is testament to his utter joy. He walks to his room in smug silence and with slow, careful steps – and that too calls for a whistle – and takes Onyx in his arms, catching her mid-leap.

“Kou-chan?”

“Yeah?”

Tooru comes to his door. “Taka needed the contract of the apartment so I had to open some of your drawers.” He points with a jerk of his chin to the drawers down, locked again, and the two, cheap keys now resting on the desk.

“Ok.”

“I didn’t snoop around or anything.”

“I know, Tooru.” If there is someone who knows just how much Suga cares about his privacy it’s Tooru. “Did you find it? The contract, I mean.”

“Yeah, yeah. Had to move some stuff around but I think I got everything back in its place...” he keeps talking but Suga now has stopped listening.

The photo album. Locked in the drawer, placed on a mountain of papers.

That’s what Tooru had to move.

“...Needed to check if the cost of maintenance appears...”

There is a photo under the desk, almost completely hidden by the foot of the chair. Tooru mustn’t have noticed it when he was tidying up.

“So Taka told the guy...”

Suga takes it and turns it around. His heart seizes up in his chest.

There is him in the picture, can’t be much older than two if not younger. He’s dressed in yellows and whites and smiling wide at the flowers in his hands. Daisies to match his outfit. On either side of him, careful not to let him fall or topple over, two women. Beautiful, both of them, with their posture straight and fine, delicate features. One has hair the exact same shade as his own.

Pure argent.

The other is someone Suga knows all too well. Or at least, at least that’s what he thought.

“Tooru.” He speaks and his voice is steel, foreign in his throat.

“Yeah?”

“Close the door behind you.”

For a moment Tooru hesitates. He must have caught the darkness in his expression, the viciousness with which he’s biting his lip, but when Suga looks up at him he does as he’s told. With a sigh and a deep crease between his brows he leaves.

Suga waits for the click of the lock to resound then he puts Onyx on the bed, safely sheltered by pillows. Breath already laboured he walks to the opposite corner of the room and takes the plant of forget-me-not in his hands.

When it crashes on the wall the vase chips, but it doesn’t break.


	34. Walking on walls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fights and family.

That night Suga doesn’t sleep.

For hours he paces and again and again he looks at the picture in his hands, till every detail of it is branded in his brain. Not marked with careful fingers and ink, but with fire, the same fire that is making his eyes burn until they fill with tears. Over and over, without respite.

Tears, nothing but salted water, are they not?

They sting though, they prick like needles the skin they trace and scorch the fingers that uselessly keep collecting them.

Suga walks around the bed one more time, he looks one more time. That’s his grandmother, holding him up with gentle hands on his waist. She is looking down at him – little him, the one who got to know her touch, - not at the camera, but Suga knows her eyes are blue, the same shade as his mother’s. She has – had, had, had - a mole near her mouth and a smile so wide that is making her nose crinkle.

The same way his does.

The images get blurry as more tears come.

His father had always told him that, of all the people in their families, she was the one he most resembled.

“A good woman. Not just nice to friends, but genuinely kind to everyone she met, except when she was sassing you, of course. And when she did, what a wit she had!” That’s what he used to say, his voice low as if she were just in the other room and he didn’t wish to disturb her sleep.

“She had a way of lighting up the room when she came in...the same gift you have, Koushi.”

Suga never understood what his father meant by that, not when he was talking about him, but her face...even in picture there is something in her features, in her countenance that shakes him to the core, something warm and luminous and contagious.

Something he doesn’t recall.

The sun breaks through the short summer night and to Suga it feels like weeks have passed since he locked himself in this room. Weeks since he and Daichi shared their last kiss, weeks since they shared everything.

They are supposed to meet today, grab a coffee somewhere, maybe go see a movie but Suga can’t...he can’t stop staring at the woman on his left. For every look he throws at his grandma, radiant, and beautiful, the one person who wasn’t given the chance to spend a life by his side, his gaze gets pulled back to rest on her.

Mrs. Devaux. Her maiden name probably, but of course it wouldn’t be the same as his mother’s, of course it couldn’t be one that Suga was familiar with.

He didn’t recognize it. That’s what she had wanted the first time they met, a lifetime ago it seems, in the shop that soon Suga came to think of as a haven of sorts. She had been waiting for him to recognize her all along, but he couldn’t.

Her name, her face, they were nothing to him.

All he had was a feeling that wouldn’t go away, a sensation, an emotion that caught him breathless, blindsided whenever their eyes would meet in a certain way, whenever she’d touch him with a warmth that was too honest, too deep for him to find an explanation.

He’d known all along then. Maybe, in a way.

And yet he’s still trembling with it.

His great-aunt. All those months it was his great-aunt he’d go see. The first person he ever told about his feelings for Daichi, the first person in which he confided and she’d raised him for the first years of his life. She saw him being born, she changed his diapers, she probably sang him songs before he’d go to bed.

He didn’t recognize her and she...she never said a word.

For months.

Nothing but allusions he wasn’t able to catch and flowers that had filled him with dread. Because after the shock of such a present had faded, dread had come and it had been so strong thoughts of this photo album had been forced where Suga would have to dig them up.

He’d known all along then, maybe he’d known since that day.

But do you ever, truly, know something until you have seen proof that it’s real?

Suga dries his tears with his palm and picks up the vase from where it lies on the floor.  A little soil has spilled but not enough that the plant cannot stand upright. The flowers are in bloom, all intact and beautiful in their heartbreaking simplicity.

Forget-me-not.

Exactly what he had done.

He thumbs at the petals of a still closed one - it’s late compared to the others - and puts the vase back on the window sill, where sun and rain can reach it once more. There is nothing to hide away anymore, nothing to dismiss or wilfully ignore.

It’s all out in the open. Almost.

_Almost._

Suga pets Onyx on the head and without even looking in the mirror he goes, picture safely tucked in the breast pocket of his shirt. He ignores Tooru calling his name from the kitchen, he looks away from Taka’s worried grimace. When Onyx tries to follow him all the way down the road he picks her up and places her in Tooru’s outstretched arms.

Then he starts running.

 

 

*

 

I love you.

Daichi wakes in the morning with Suga’s voice in his ears.

I love you.

He stays still for a moment, in the bed they shared – I love you – and he sees him lying here beside him, fast asleep, with the light that streaming from the windows colours his skin gold.

The sheets that keep falling from his shoulders to uncover the curve of his spine.

I love you.

Suga had said so. Daichi had looked into his eyes and he’d seen it, he’d felt it in his own chest but in the end he never found the courage to tell him. I love you too.

Even though he does he couldn’t tell him. Not as an answer to his confession, when his heart had seemed about to explode in his chest, not when his mind and judgement were cloudy with the need taking hold of his body.

The last person he’d said those words to was Yurika. One night in his dorm room, they were still naked and panting and Daichi was high on it. Her body was a silhouette in the blinding morning light and when he’d looked at her, Daichi remembers thinking that she’d never looked more beautiful than she did in that moment.

So he’d called her name and he’d said it.

Yurika didn’t say it back. In five years she never did.

Or maybe she had and Daichi refuses to recall it. It’s not like it was true anyway.

This, though, this is true.

What Suga told him, in the quiet of the kitchen and then again in this bed – I love you, I love you, I love you, -  was true. The way Daichi feels is true.

But he doesn’t want to give Suga a moment. Something he can second-guess at night, after a nasty fight.

Daichi wants...Daichi wants to give him everything. He wants to build a house with him, a future they can trust.

With him, Daichi has to do it right.

So he’d kept quiet. He’d whispered it only to himself, over and over and over again with his lips stubbornly shut, in the curve of Suga’s waist. In the softness of his stomach, in the crook of his neck. When really, all he’d wanted was shout it from the rooftops.

I love you.

I love Suga.

So loud the entire city could hear. I love this man, and he loves me. In Nobu-san’s face, in Yurika’s. I love him, he matters to me.

Not just a fling, not just sex, a moment of foolishness.

I love him.

He loves Suga.

He reaches out and his palm splays on the emptiness of the bed, the side Suga had occupied. He looks for his warmth but after hours it all has faded, on the mattress at least.

In his chest his heart contracts to the point of pain.

A few hours and he already misses him. God, he’s ridiculous.

But whatever, right? If there was ever an excuse for acting silly then it’s love.

He looks around for his phone. Usually, so early in the morning Suga would be still asleep but in the last month he’s taken to wake up early to get his eight/ten hours of studying done.

Sugawara Koushi’s will is something to be feared.

Daichi is already typing a new message – ‘can’t stop thinking about you...’ – when his phone rings.

It’s...Oikawa?

The hair behind his neck stands. “Oikawa, what-”

“Something happened.”

No greetings, no niceties.

“I don’t know what but when he came home yesterday Koushi threw a vase against the wall. He’s been pacing in his room all night and I don’t know-”

Oikawa is talking fast. Too fast for Daichi to fully comprehend what he’s saying.

But something happened to Suga. Something happened and that’s all Daichi needs to know.

He throws the sheets away and stands in a rush. All he says to Oikawa is “I’m coming”.

 

 

 

*

 

The shop is open when Suga gets there, and like the city it teems with the chatty, lazy life of Sunday mornings. Already a few clients are walking past the shelves and, who lost, who distracted, who enraptured by the millions of colours, are inspecting wild roses, violets and anemones, and stunning, long-stemmed sunflowers.

Suga watches them all, one by one, looking for the eyes he seeks but he can’t find them.

She might be in the backroom, he tries to reason, or covered by the tall shelf of lilies past which Suga cannot see. Yes, or...or she might not be there at all.

She might have left for real, after all. She might have found a better place to conduct her business and she entrusted her – beloved – shop here to someone else. She might have given up, after days, weeks, of silence on his part.

She might...

His heart constricts, as if squeezed to its last drop of blood by an iron vice and he has to lean on the warm stone of the building for a moment, to try and catch his breath. His hands, his whole body is trembling now, just at the prospect of seeing her. With the fear that he might not get to.

The air from his lungs draws white clouds on the glass window and through them he watches the small crowd in the shop open.

She looks tired, is the first thing he notices, drawn even from steps away. There are dark shadows under her eyes, so violent even make-up cannot cover them and she lacks the casual elegance that always set her apart from everyone else. Her gestures are slow, sluggish, even the wrap she wears around her shoulders is uncharacteristically plain and somber, in hues of black and midnight blue.

In Suga’s pocket the picture weighs heavy, a stone that breaks the surface of water to lie endlessly in the darkest depth.

Suga closes his hand around it, careful not to crush it, and in the next breath he’s at the door, pushing it open, causing the wind chimes to tinkle. All eyes turn to him, when he’s in no condition to be stared at, and the plant in Mrs. Devaux’s hands threatens to fall on the spotless floor.

Only one of the clients placing a helpful hand at the bottom of the vase keeps it from happening.

“Oh, sorry,” Mrs. Devaux is saying, her voice light, light to the point of shrillness. “I was startled, that’s all.”

She waves away everybody’s concern and with no more hesitations she continues to explain the properties of jasmine.

For a moment when their eyes had met something akin to hope had begun to shine in her own, but the storm raging in his had killed it before it could take root. Now only her composure, a consummated actress’ composure, keeps her from yielding to her nerves.

Suga sees it in the way she’s carrying herself now. The line of her spine is drawn so straight a gust of wind could snap it in halves.

He wishes his feelings were straightforward enough that this could satisfy him. He wishes the anger now eating at his heart were not so intrinsically intertwined with pain, and hopes of his own.

The impromptu lesson ends and he makes no move to step in closer.

One after the other the clients pass him by, he nods in greetings at each of them but he never attempts to reciprocate their awkward, polite smiles. He can’t, not now, not today.

Today he’s done faking things he doesn’t feel.

When the last one has gone, finally, and no more have stepped in, he turns the sign at the door, from open to closed. At last he steps in, inside this space that smells of flowers and earth.

Mrs. Devaux is waiting for him behind the counter. Her hands are of a startling white against dark wood and they look strangely frail, blue veins and age spots Suga doesn’t remember stand out under the suffused lights. Next to them he places the picture.

Looking into her eyes he asks one, single question. “Why?”

And suddenly, at once, they are both trembling.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

It’s this, this the matter that has kept him up all night. What made him throw the vase to the wall, in a moment of frenzy he’d regretted immediately after, and what he still can’t explain.

The one thing that is yet to be explained.

“Just...why?”

_We could have had months. Months._

_To spend together as...as a..._

Mrs. Devaux smiles, - this is how this gesture is qualified but the edges of her mouth are turned both downward, - bitter, and resigned. With a single finger she traces the contours of her sister’s face. “I was scared,” she says, and even though her smile is all wrong, even though one of them wasn’t allowed to ever age, from so close Suga starts at how much they still look alike.

“I was scared that, if you knew who I was, you wouldn’t...you wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with me.”

She laughs then, and as her eyes crinkle the first tear falls. “After all I’ve...I’ve taken so long to come and find you. All these years you must have thought that, that nobody was left from...from your mother’s family who still cared about you.”

Yes. That had crossed his mind.

He knows he has some distant cousins in Europe, sons and grandchildren of his great-grandparents but he never expected any of them to travel thousands of miles just to meet him. Like he never expected his mother to come back to him.

He keeps quiet on it all but she reads him anyway. More tears spill as she looks down at the picture again. “Wherever she is right now, I’m sure she wishes she could slap me for waiting so long.”

She pauses a moment and suddenly her eyes are dry. “You didn’t recognize my name,” she whispers, not a question or an accusation, just a statement.

A recount of the moment that settled her decision to keep quiet.

“Do you know hers? My sister’s...your grandmother’s name?”

Suga does. “Cècilia.”

His father had always pronounced it with never-ending fondness. The only part of Suga’s childhood that never seemed to cause him any grief, but for the natural one born from her loss.

Mrs. Devaux attempts another smile. “Good, that’s good.”

Some of her heartbreak seems to disappear.

She couldn’t have accepted for her sister to be forgotten in such a way. Her face, her smile, her name.

But then again she, more than anyone, could have filled the blanks. In the months they spent together, hours side by side that passed in comforting silence, she could have told him. She could have given him the childhood he doesn’t remember.

His father spent his every waking hour making sure Koushi grew loved and well, while he harboured his own grief and guilt he built a future with the ashes of their past, in that house hunted by ghosts. Suga refuses to blame him for the silence that often made up their entire day.

It was his own fault for running away from his past for so long, his own fault for never asking...but in the past few months he’s tried so hard to regain it, to make peace with it.

Only now he finds that a part of it was here.

One more time he looks at the figure standing by his side, frozen in a moment they will never get back, and he can’t reconcile it. The smile her past self is wearing, the silence she was locked in for months. “Why did it take you so long?” he asks again, it’s the only thing he cares to know now.

She could have helped him add pieces to a puzzle that he knows will never be complete.

She chose to stay silent.

Why?

Why? Why? Why? Why?

She shakes her head and the glow of her hair catches the lights of the shop. With old age it has turned the same shade as her sister’s was in the picture.

But it’s a fake.

“My husband,” she says, “my second husband, he...he wasn’t a nice man.”

The vice around Suga’s heart tightens. Words like those could mean a great deal of things, they could mean nothing at all, but the shiver down his spine tells him this is not the case.

Not a nice man.

She had been waiting for him to die. Then, only then she’d come, looking for someone she thought wouldn’t want anything to do with her. She’d come with nothing but her memories, to see him one more time.

For a moment Suga wants to hold her. He wants to run around this stupid counter and take her in his arms, see if at last – at last – something of her stuck inside his mind. Her perfume, perhaps, or the way she clings to him, the feeling of her cheek pressed against his own.

He’s shaking with it, but he doesn’t. He can’t bring himself to.

The past few months, and the friendship he had thought they’d built stand between them.

“That’s not what I asked,” he says and his voice breaks.

His sympathy? She has it. Forgiveness for having taken so long to come? Suga doesn’t need to forgive her for that.

But the lies, that she would keep the truth from him for so long...

How long would have this dragged on if he hadn’t found this picture? How long would Mrs. Devaux have accepted his silence, without once standing against it? Without once raising her voice to tell him the bloody truth?

It’s these past few months that stand between them now. Not the twenty-two years lived in complete darkness.

And she knows that. “I wanted to tell you, I promise, but I couldn’t find a moment-”

“You couldn’t find a moment?”

Without meaning to Suga takes a step back. Away from her. “We spent hours alone. Hours saying nothing and cutting the stems of hundreds of flowers. Any of those moments could have been the right moment!”

Mrs. Devaux flinches. Every word that comes from his lips scratches his throat bloody and the more he hurts the more she pales, as if she too can feel it.

They are sharing it, this pain, it’s one and the same.

“I told you first. About Daichi. Not my father, not even my best friend got to hear it, loud and clear from me. I trusted you first.”

A tear falls down his cheek and he dries it away, so fast, so infuriated – with her, with himself – that his cheek stings afterwards, red and sore. “For weeks I thought this connection between us was all in my head. That it was my...my starving for affection, missing my nana and my father, that was drawing me closer and closer to you.”

Again that hope flickering helplessly in her eyes.

“I came here the day after my birthday to ask you why you hadn’t come to the party. I came to tell you I had kissed Daichi and that it was...it was everything I could have dreamed of. But I found no one here waiting for me, nothing but a plant and a note that could have meant nothing like they could have meant everything.”

Mrs. Devaux walks around the counter, with her hands outstretched she tries to reach him. “I wasn’t gone though, Koushi. I wasn’t leaving you.”

Koushi.

No honorifics, just his name. The way she must have called him when he was a kid playing with the pearls hanging from her shoulder wrap.

_I_ _wasn’t_ _leaving_ _you_ , she said

_Not the way she did._

“No, no you just handed me – through a stranger’s hands, I should add – the answers to a question I could have never conceived on my own.”

“You just threw allusions I had no means to catch. Were you testing me, all this time?”

“No! No, I only wanted...I only wanted to know how much you remembered.”

“You could have asked...”

Tiredness washes over him, surrounds him like a cloak sewn in stone and his shoulders sag. If only she’d said the truth, if only he had it in him to forgive her so easily for all the lies she told...

But why must he always forgive?

He’s so tired.

Her fingers cling onto the fabric of his shirt – the same he’d worn yesterday, the same shirt Daichi had taken off with his caresses. She has gone pale, too pale, even her lips are bloodless. “I didn’t want to mess up your life,” she says in his chest and her voice hitches and cracks with sobs that come from the deep. “From the first time I saw you I...I recognized that sadness in your eyes and...and it broke my heart, to think that I could make it worse.”

“When you kept coming...every time I saw you from the shop window I said to myself ‘you are going to tell him today’-”

“But you never did.”

Again she flinches, she holds him even tighter. “No. I couldn’t...I wasn’t strong enough.”

“Finally I was doing what I’d been dreaming of for over twenty years, I was getting to know you. And I was...I was terrified that, if I told you who I was, you wouldn’t want to see me again.”

“I couldn’t risk that.”

More tears fall from her eyes and her hands rise to cup his cheeks. “Je ne pouvais pas risquer de te perdre, mon rayon de lune. Pas de nouveau.”

Not again.

Suga shakes as the words worm in between his ribs.

_Mon rayon de lune._

They echo in his mind, followed by crystal laughter. Mrs. Devaux has not made a sound.

_“Koushi! Petit fleur espiègle! Où étiez-vous, mon rayon de lune?”_

More laughter and hands, gentle, slim hands picking him up.

Suga draws back. His heart hits the prison of his ribs, he wants to throw up.

“Koushi!” Mrs. Devaux calls him but he can’t...he can’t...

“I need to go.”

He says, to himself, out loud. Mrs. Devaux shakes her head.

Her eyes are still shimmering with tears, still alight with desperation.

Suga takes a deep breath and places his hands on her shoulders. She may have lied to him for months, he may be mad but he can’t leave her like this.

He’s not that kind of person.

“I’ll come back,” he adds, before she can cling to him again. “I promise I will. But I need...I need some time.”

To breathe.

To wrap my head around the lies you’ve told.

To understand how much they matter to me, if they are more important than the honest moments we shared, than the relationship we built.

He lets her go, he helps her sit back behind the counter and only then he leaves.

 

When he gets back home he finds Tooru and Taka and Onyx, all sitting down on the front steps waiting for him. Pacing up and down the pathway is Daichi.

“Hey.”

They look up at the sound of his voice, Daichi nearly gives himself a whiplash.

Suga makes his way to them and right away he’s pulled in a messy, messy group hug. Eyes closed tight, he soaks up the warmth.

 

 

*

 

Suga says nothing at first. For what feels like hours he closes in dumbfounded silence, blinking at the floor, lost a thousand miles away from home.

Daichi looks at him and all he sees is exhaustion, streams of thoughts swirling in the endless depths of his beautiful, beautiful eyes. Just a few hours ago Daichi had kissed him breathless outside this very door and Suga had smiled his widest, most breathtaking smile.

Happy.

Now he can’t even bring himself to meet Daichi’s eyes.

“Suga-san are you alright?”

“Koushi, please, say something!”

Onyx meows.

“Suga...”

Daichi calls him and Suga shivers. Seated at the kitchen table and surrounded by people, he looks strangely small. A deer pricking his ears, ready to bolt before the hunters come.

Still without a word he searches his pockets and he pulls out a picture for them all to see.

Daichi recognizes those dimples immediately. Dressed in yellow and white baby Suga smiles up at him, toothless and adorable. He can’t be older than two here and in the crinkle of his nose, the bright, lively light dancing in his eyes Daichi recognizes the man he loves now.

For a moment he allows himself to smile back.

He looks up at Suga, to find an explanation to his sadness, and sees his eyes, focused on a different figure standing by his side. Daichi follows them and like before recognition comes fast. A curse falls from his lips.

Mrs. Devaux.

The kind old lady who’s helped them with the garden, who’s made their children laugh and Suga feel a little lighter, a little more understood. She’s younger here, sure, her face is not marked by a never-ending pattern of lines, her eyes lack the haziness that age and regrets brought with the passing years but she’s unmistakeable. And looking at them so close Daichi can’t figure out how the hell he never noticed the many, countless ways they look alike.

“Suga, what...?”

“She’s my great-aunt.”

The hand still lying on the table shakes with a spasm and he closes it in a tight fist. “She came here to find me, only when she introduced herself months ago she chose to omit this most important piece of information.”

His voice raises with sarcasm but in his eyes Daichi sees clearly the damage those lies made.

Anger builds inside him, turns his blood to lava, that seethes and boils in the restraint of his veins.

Suga had just now learned the facts behind his mother leaving, to accept that there were no real reasons to dissect or explain. And from it he was starting to find some sort of peace of mind. Now though...

Why does the world insist on testing him? For what does he need to prove his strength, again and again and again? Why the fuck must he suffer this way, when his only real fault in life is to possess a heart that is too beautiful, too big, too kind?

He’s telling the others now what Daichi already realized. To Aone-san, who seemed ignorant of everything, ignorant but never unaware, he recounts stories Daichi has already heard and not once does his voice shake.

They all are around this table, in anger, in shock, for sympathy, everyone but him.

He takes a deep breath once he’s done and the laughter that follows, light on his lips, is enough to break Daichi’s heart to pieces.

Again with that liveliness that clashes with the atmosphere “There must be something about me,” he says, “that makes it easy for people to leave, or lie or...”

And at last his voice cracks.

 

He doesn’t cry. Daichi stays, he spends the day by his side but Suga never loses composure again.

He asks Tooru to put the picture back in the photo album, hidden in the desk drawer, and lies down on his bed to sleep.

Daichi lies down with him, his arms tight around his waist, and he knows the whole time Suga doesn’t sleep a wink.

“This wasn’t how I imagined you’d get to see my room,” he whispers at some point in the afternoon, when the sunrays have turned orange and gold on teal walls.

Daichi hugs him to his chest and presses a kiss on the delicate skin behind his ear. “It’s alright,” he says. “It’s a nice room.”

Except for the colours of the walls it’s Suga through and through, warm and messy. Weird with this strange arraignment of posters, from anime to obscure movies to paintings and views that take your breath away, but also sweet, with the dozens of family pictures that crowd his desk.

There are books everywhere, - this too is so, so Suga, - in piles that reach Daichi’s chest, and in the air the same perfume that permeates Suga’s clothes.

“I love it,” he adds and he watches as Suga shivers.

“Y-yeah well, don’t get too attached, Sawamura. I’m leaving it in about a month.”

Daichi noses at his hair and a different scent reaches him, the just as familiar one of flowers and unexpected spring breeze. “Yeah well, when you do I’ll love any other space you’ll fill.”

“Just as much?”

“No. I’ll love it even more.”

Suga turns a little, enough for their lips to meet...

A knock on the door starts them both apart. It’s Oikawa, with a mug in his hand and a gym bag tossed over his shoulders.

The handhold of the mug is shaped like a shrimp.

“I have practice now,” he says in way of an apology. He pauses. “You’ll be ok, Kou?”

Suga nods and smiles as he puts the mug down on the nightstand. This one, finally, it looks sincere. “Yeah, it was just...it was just a moment. I’m good now.”

He keeps himself steady, his voice doesn’t waver. He’s calm now but it’ll take some time for him to be ‘good’ again.

Oikawa doesn’t try to argue with him, he just nods back and leans down for a kiss, chaste and gentle on Suga’s lips. At the door he throws one last look at Daichi and the brief smile that follows speaks a lot of approval.

Thank you for coming, it seems to say.

Daichi waves at him. Of course.

And then, thank you for calling me.

With a wink Oikawa leaves.

Suga drinks his tea in slow gulps, with his eyes fixed, hazy, on the lines of pictures on his left. His fingers search for Daichi’s hand, steady on the curve of his waist, and he squeezes it with indescribable tenderness.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he whispers then, against the skin of Daichi’s shoulder.

Daichi kisses his brows. “So am I.”

They lie down again, with Onyx warm between their intertwined ankles they stop the world to look into each other’s eyes. The gold and copper of Suga’s irises are melting into one another, they blend till they are indistinguishable, and alike the nostalgia that will forever linger in their depths makes space for soft, easy contentedness.

That contentedness, Daichi will never take it for granted.

It’s going to be alright, he wants to say. For he knows, he’s sure it will.

But in the end he settles for another kiss, lingering on the tip of Suga’s nose.

The eyes before him glimmer.

 

 

*

 

The shock that came with discovery trails away, away, away from him till it slowly dies. Anger becomes a itch underneath his ribs, that tickles till it chips the bones every time Suga thinks back to his own stupidity.

He should have known, he thinks. He should have understood.

He should have caught those hints, he shouldn’t have yelled. He shouldn’t have let so many weeks pass, fearing the confirmation to a suspicion that tickled the most remote parts of his brain.

(His great-aunt though?

His great-aunt?)

But he just wanted...he just wanted these weeks to pass, without the fear of distracting drama. He still wants that, he still needs that.

He needs to focus.

The image of Mrs. Devaux’s tears – his great-aunt, his great-aunt, his great-aunt – appears behind his closed eyelids, stubborn it picks at the strings of Suga’s heart and over and over he shoves it away, before notions and terms and dates that he still needs to memorize.

He was always good at compartmentalizing, - he had to be, with a house and mind lived by shadows - so that’s what he does.

Acceptance comes easy, if easy can be called spending nights awake to dissect the golden thread that has been connecting their ribcages from the very first moment they’d met, but with it so does the fear of having already messed up something that could have been good for him. For her, for his family.

It keeps him up at night. The words he’d said to her, the way he’d said them. It keeps him tense with nerves whenever he allows himself to think about it, so much so that his muscles twitch beneath his skin, his bones on their way to give out.

And the solution to it all would be easy: go to her, accept her into his life the way he wants, with open arms.

But when the morning comes he can never bring himself to.

He feels pity and he feels pain. Like with his mother, in front of Mrs. Devaux’s suffering he can’t shield himself behind anger. Maybe he wasn’t cut out to hold grudges for too long.

The anger comes after, with thoughts of the past few months, it comes with the doubt that the lie was everything that passed between them.

That’s what stops him.

Months of pouring his heart out to a woman who hid the most fundamental thing about her. He understands she was scared, he understands that she didn’t want to lose him but that single lie is tainting everything to his eyes, every – bright, joyous - moment they got to spend together.

And when he stands from his desk and the walls that separate each compartment start to fall the only thing capable of making him restore his balance is this.

“Suga-san!”

Kaede leaps into his arms when he sees him standing outside the gate. Classmates and moms that know his character stare at him in dumbfounded silence but the moment Suga closes his arms around his baby they all disappear.

He spins them around and around and Kaede laughs in the crook of his neck. “Suga-san...” he whispers once they’ve stopped. His hold on him never loosens.

“I was waiting for nana.”

Suga kisses his cheek. “I know, but I thought I’d surprise you.”

“Unless, of course, you don’t want to be surprised. In that case I can just call your nana again and tell her to come inst-”

“No! No! No!”

Kaede’s eyes too are smiling, of the darkest black they shine like a starry night sky. “No. You are here, so you can’t leave now!”

With that wonderful, easy children’s logic Suga can’t argue. There is no way he’s leaving now, there is no way he’s leaving them. At this point he knows...he knows he never could, not of his own free will.

“I was hoping you’d say that, my heart.”

He presses another kiss on Kaede’s cheek and to the sound of his laughter he walks them to Ayame’s school.

 

On the way they buy a bag of mochi and quick they eye one of the few free benches in the courtyard. It’s still a bit early for Ayame and the rest of the classes to come out but there are already small groups of moms gathered all around the space, chattering and laughing and standing on their tippy toes to see if they can catch a glimpse of their kids by the lowest windows.

Suga doesn’t join them. Kaede has done tremendous progress in his casual interactions with others, but really, any kid gets bored when their parents start up a conversation with other adults. So Suga waves at the few he knows and simply walks by.

Without a care in the world, how he’d intended to, but when he does, when he steps closer to a group of mothers he recognizes from Ayame’s birthday party they all, suddenly, fall quiet. A couple of them attempt an awkward wave, but most freeze and square him off, from the tips of his shoes to that of his flyway hair.

Kaede tugs on his hand to get him to sit too and Suga follows with a strange weight stuck in his throat.

What...what the hell was that about?

“Do you want the minty mochi, Suga-san?”

Suga drops his bag at his feet and nods. In a swift move he turns as to give only his back to them and before him now there is just Kaede, and the door from which Ayame will come out in a few minutes’ time.

“I think this one is with adzuki bean filling.”

“Mine! Mine!” Kaede shoves it in his mouth and swallows it in two bites. His cheeks grow round like those of a hamster and it’s enough to make Suga laugh again.

“One at the time, Kaede. No one is going to steal your mochi from you.”

“Who says? If I was a thief I would steal mochi, not money.”

“If I were.”

“Were, right.”

“But if you stole money you could buy a thousand mochi with it.”

Kaede’s eyes light up at the mere thought of it but it’s fleeting, only a moment before he’s sulking. “Daddy says I can’t eat that many or I’ll ruin my health.”

Suga fishes another mochi – without adzuki bean filling – from the bag and bites it in halves to uncover dark chocolate. Nice. With his free hand he brushes Kaede’s hair back. “Your father is very wise,” he says.

All the support Daichi needs for this kid not to live only off mochi and other sweets.

The corners of Kaede’s mouth twitch upwards.

Uh-oh.

“He is, uh?” he echoes and shifts closer to him on the narrow bench. “Is he handsome too?”

The remaining part of the mochi gets stuck right in Suga’s trachea. He coughs. “W-what?”

He sputters.

He makes a fool of himself.

Kaede’s smile turns wider. “I said, is daddy handsome too?”

Holy shit. This kid really knows everything.

“Um, sure. I m-mean, objectively speaking...”

_Dude get a grip._ “He is...yes, I would say that, that your father is rather handsome. Objectively.”

“Objectively.” Kaede intones it, tastes the word on his tongue and cocks his head to the side. His smile has now become a smirk. “What do you mean, Suga-san?”

He knows exactly what Suga means. Suga heard him use the word ‘objectively’ half a dozen times this month alone. “Well, like, the sky is blue, right?”

“Right.”

“And that’s a fact.”

“It is.”

“Like an orange is orange and grass is green. That your father is handsome is also a fact.”

“How? I thought you said that beauty is in the eye of the bee-holder?”

Despite himself, despite the intensity with which Kaede is regarding him and the fact that he’s both figuratively and very much concretely walking on burning coals, Suga chuckles. “Beholder, Kaede. Not bee-holder. As in perceiver, viewer, onlooker.”

Kaede’s expression clears some. “Oh. That makes more sense,” he tells Suga.

Then, under his breath. “I knew the bee part was weird.”

“You and your obsession with bees, I swear.”

“Bees are evil, Suga-san.”

“So you’ve said, my gooey jellyfish. So you’ve said.”

Kaede giggles at the nickname, his laughter like sweet jingles of bells, then he stops, abruptly, to glare at him. “Suga-san! You are trying to distract me from the question!”

Suga looks up, at the giant clock on the school rooftop. Now it’s his turn to smirk. “What question?” he asks.

And just as Kaede is starting to respond the bell rings.

“Suga-san!”

Ayame runs to him and just like he did with her brother, only with a little more difficulty, he spins her around till they are both out of breath and everyone around them is watching.

In the chaos of laughter and voices Kaede’s whisper still reaches his ears though. “This isn’t over, Suga-san.”

Suga only beams down at him and holds out his hands for his children to take.

 

Sachiko-san welcomes them home with freshly baked muffins and kisses.

She laughs at the children’s colourful recount of their day – now that school is ending every morning resembles a celebration – and participates with lively comments and jokes, but while the children eat she leads Suga under the light streaming from the windows and studies his face.

Her eyes are kind. And so is her touch when she strokes his cheek.

“Are you alright, darling?” she asks.

Suga doesn’t know if Daichi told her, he wouldn’t mind if he did. “Yeah, fine. I’m just tired, I guess.”

There is something in the way Sachiko-san treats him, has always treated him, that makes him feel calm. She never spoke to him with the tentative cautiousness of an acquaintance, she never acted as if she wished he was away when dealing with family matters.

She accepted his presence here from day one, when he was but a nanny to her beloved grandkids, and she welcomes it now that he’s become something else.

And Suga is grateful.

“Alright then.” With her thumb she traces the shadow underneath his cheekbone. “If you need anything, Koushi-kun, anything at all, tell me.”

She smiles another one of her kind smiles and the inflection of her voice, the accent that still lingers in her vowels, the way she is reaching out now to fix a wrinkle on his shoulder, they all remind him of his grandma.

She gives off the same warmth, the same wonderful sense of security.

Mrs. Devaux has it too, this gift of making you always feel safe and appreciated. It was one of the things that drew him to her, even when the intensity with which she looked at him sometimes scared him.

Suga smiles too and leans down to press a kiss on her cheek. “I know. I will.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t even say it, Koushi.”

She makes her way back to the table and grabs a couple of muffins before small, greedy hands can make them all disappear. She hands them to Suga. “Now eat. You are looking a little too pale for my taste.”

Feeding him as a solution to all the problems of the world. Somewhere back in Miyagi his nana is nodding along in approval.

Suga does as he’s told between bouts of laughter and gut-wrenching nostalgia.

 

“Do you need to study today, Suga-san?”

Kaede tightens his hold on his waist as he asks, like he has no intention of letting Suga leave this floor.

“No, I studied this morning. I think I’ll do some more tonight, before going to sleep, but today I’m all yours.”

Ayame lets out a whoop from behind his shoulders. In her enthusiasm she tugs on Suga’s hair a little too hard and he can’t suppress a wince. “Sorry, Suga-san!”

“It’s fine, it’s fine.”

Kaede chuckles when he makes a show of dabbing his eyes.

“Nooo, Suga-san, I didn’t hurt you that bad, did I?”

“No, no, I was just messing with you.”

Ayame tugs again, this time on purpose. Suga retaliates by pinching her bare calf and she squeals, indignant and breathless with laughter. “That was mean!”

“You started it, Ayame. Don’t turn this around to make me look like the bad guy, especially considering that I’ve got witnesses!”

Kaede smirks up at his sister and to prove just on whose side he’s on he plasters himself on Suga. Head tucked sweetly under Suga’s chin, he noses at his shirt and stifles a yawn in the crook of his neck.

Even as the sky has started to darken with clouds the humid heat of the morning is hard to leave, seeping deep into their bones it’s turned them to lead and even something as small as raising an arm or flex a foot seem like mighty, titanic deeds.

Sitting all so close can’t be helping, too, but Suga is not about to wave off his kids when they are feeling so agreeable and cuddly. He bends his neck a little and presses a kiss on the top of Kaede’s head.

Mighty deed, but the smile that follows it is worth anything.

“Do you want a braid or a chignon, Suga-san?” Ayame asks, apparently she’s done with brushing.

Suga turns a little toward her. “What do you think would be best?”

She takes her time to think about it, and like every other thing that makes her Ayame, Suga loves it. He loves how much she cares, about even the smallest things, how she has to do her absolute best when faced with even the most inane of challenges.

He watches her study him with a finger to her chin, he lets her move locks of hair in front of his face, he faces this or that side on her indication. When she cocks her head, picturing something only she can see, Suga bumps their noses together.

She giggles.

“So what’s the diagnosis, Sawamura-san?”

She gives him a few bobby pins to hold. “Braid it is,” she says and with a resolute nod she gets to work.

“You have to grow your hair long, Suga-san.”

“Yeah, I was thinking about it too. I never tried wearing it longer than chin-length so it should be interesting.”

Ayame starts to divide his hair in three, messy locks. She leaves his side-bangs alone though, to curl around his chin. “You would look so pretty, Suga-san, I’m sure of it! And if you wear it long I can try a lot more different hairdos!”

“Ah, so I’m your guinea pig!”

The braiding begins. “Suga-san, did you only just find out?”

They share a look in the TV set and they both burst out laughing.

“Where did you get all this sass, Aya-chan?”

“Some I always had, but mostly I learned it from you!”

It’s ridiculous, how much that warms his heart.

“Oh boy, don’t tell your father that!”

Kaede moves in his arms, bothered by the noise, and without thinking Suga starts to rock him, as much as he can with his hair still hostage in Ayame’s grip.

“Sais-tu qui je suis? Le rayon de lune. Sais-tu d’où je viens? Regarde là-haut. Ma mére est brillante, et la nuit est brune.”

He sings the first thing that comes to his mind, not a song at all but in name. ‘La chanson du rayon de lune’ by Guy de Maupassant. It’s been stuck in his brain since he heard Mrs. Devaux call him that.

Mon rayon de lune.

“Je rampe sous l’arbre et glisse sur l’eau. Je m’étends sur l’herbe et cours sur la dune.”

Last night he’d replayed it over and over again, when thoughts wouldn’t unravel into something he could analyze. He replayed it till his eyelids finally grew heavy.

“Je grimpe au mur noir, au tronc du bouleau. Comme un maraudeur que cherche fortune.”

A poem to a melody he made up.

Slowly Kaede’s breath deepens again. As soon as it does Suga closes his mouth shut, so fast his teeth clink.

“That was nice, Suga-san,” Ayame tells him in a whisper.

“Thank you.”

Thank you. That was how my grandmother used to call me.

And I had no idea until a few days ago.

He keeps quiet.

He doesn’t know how he’s so sure it was his grandmother’s voice, that which he heard echo in his head. It could have been Mrs. Devaux’s, in twenty years it must have changed some, or his mother’s. It’s not like he remembers what his mother sounds like either.

But it was her. Every instinct in him screams that it was her.

His grand-maman, Cècilia.

A small hand settles on his shoulder. “Your eyes have gone sad.”

Suga raises his gaze, from where it had landed on the cold, insignificant floor and meets Ayame’s once again, in the reflection of them the TV set gives.

“Yeah,” he says.

Why deny it?

“How come?”

With his own Ayame’s expression tightens.

Because Kaede is so young it’s always a surprise, just how receptive he is. But Ayame too, in the last few months she’s grown so much more aware of other’s feelings, and by nature she seems to feel them too inside her chest.

Sweet, caring Ayame, who acts tougher than she really is.

Suga covers her hand with his own and squeezes her soft, thin fingers.

He wishes he could tell her, he truly does. About Mrs. Devaux, yes, and…and about them too, him and Daichi.

But he’s afraid she’d get angry, that she wouldn’t want to see Mrs. Devaux again if he did. He’s afraid she won’t look at him this way anymore once she’s found out the role he’s taken by Daichi’s side.

“You can’t say?”

“I’m afraid not, my love. Not yet, anyway.”

Not now that I’m alone.

“But you will soon?”

“Yes. Yes, I’ll tell you soon.”

Ayame nods. For a moment she puts the brush away and circles his shoulders with her arms. “Maybe it’s better if you don’t. If I find out someone’s hurt you then I’ll have to beat them up and when I beat them up you and daddy will be sad and you’ll lecture me.”

“Mmm. Violence is never the answer, Aya.”

“See? You are starting already!”

Suga laughs. A drop of salted water falls free from the trap of his eyelashes. “I love you, kid,” he says.

_Always._

Ayame presses her cheek on his. “I love you too, Suga-san.”

_I pray you always will._

A loud, smacking kiss on his cheek and Ayame gets to work again.

The noise has startled Kaede awake though. He blinks up at Suga, rubs at his eyes then looks again, intent.

“Aya!” he calls, loud enough that his sister jumps in surprise and tugs again at Suga’s hair.

“Ow!”

“Sorry!”

“Aya! Did you make Suga-san cry?”

“What? Suga-san, are you crying?”

“No, I just got something in my eye!”

He tries to explain but Kaede has already jumped to his feet. With murderous eyes he stalks in Ayame’s direction and hits her with one of the sofa cushions.

“Kaede!”

It only takes a second for Ayame to regain her wits. When she does, she’s smirking. “Oh, you’re on!”

For five minutes Suga, with the help of Sachiko-san, tries to break them up to no avail. Thankfully, now there are only gleeful smiles stamped on their faces.

Thankfully, because when a pillow accidentally hits Suga square on the nose he doesn’t feel too obliged to keep his serious act up and he can simply join.

Sachiko-san is the one who hands him the pillows. “Do your best, Koushi-kun,” she says.

Suga nods at her and with a war cry deign of Spartacus he joins the fray.

 

Daichi is greeted home that day with a pillow in the face.

“I’m hom-mmpf.”

He takes one look at them all – Ayame and Kaede standing on the couch, now united to fight Suga, Suga, red in the cheeks and with a braid already turning loose, Sachiko-san chanting encouragements from the sidelines – and places the briefcase on the floor.

Silence has now fallen inside the room.

Daichi takes off his jacket, loosens the tie. Then, still with a stern look on his face, he picks up the pillow he was just hit with. “Whose is this?” he asks.

Kaede points at Ayame. Ayame points at Suga. Suga points at Daichi.

“It’s yours, Sawamura-san. You bought this couch, didn’t you?”

The kids snicker, but stop at once as Daichi’s gaze falls on them again.

“I see,” he says. “I see.”

Without warning he runs toward them all, pillow in hand, ready to fight.

The kids scream.

 

“I can’t believe you broke my pillow…”

Daichi huffs away a feather that has landed on his brow.

Suga scoots closer to him and lays a hand on his arm. “Technically it was you who broke it. You swung it too hard.”

His voice gives out on the last words. He’s still breathless with all the blows he delivered – ok, and also received, - his cheeks feel hot with the effort and he’s sure his hair must be a complete and utter mess.

It was worth it, though.

“It tore when you tried to hit me with your pillow and I used it as a shield!”

Ayame drapes herself all across her father’s legs to rest her head on Suga’s knee. “Still your fault, dad,” she intones. She is the most composed of them four, only the wrinkles in her shirt suggest something more than civil conversation just went down in this living room. “The way you were holding your pillow was totally wrong.”

Daichi glares at her. “How is there a right or wrong way to hold a pillow during a pillow fight? It’s a pillow fight, not javelin throw.”

For some reason that’s so fucking funny to Suga. He bursts out laughing and with him Kaede, who’s still half-hiding behind his back.

“This way of thinking is exactly why you broke your pillow and lost, dad.”

Daichi grumbles under his breath. “Mine is a family of weirdos, I swear.”

“Daddy!”

“Language, Daichi!”

“How dare you?”

Daichi blows Suga’s hair away from his face, the same way he did with that feather. “Oh please, Suga, you are the last person on Earth who can act indignant. You have sparkly pink crabs on your socks!”

Suga chooses not to answer, not much he can say in defense of his socks anyway, so he just shows the tongue. Daichi laughs and laughs, and soon everyone follows.

Everyone but Suga. Surrounded by laughter and warmth, by people who love him just the way he is – crab socks and all - he massages his chest, to feel beneath his palm the rhythm to which his heart is beating.

Family.

Isn’t this what pushed her to fly a thousand miles away from home? Something worth trying to rebuild.


	35. Pictures of the stage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daisies and volleyball.

“Koushi! Où est-tu? Petit espiègle, parais tout de suite!”

Suga moves away, he backs into the wall until the cement curls around his bones. He watches with bated breath a big, wicker basket move as if possessing a life of its own.

Where the hell…

He looks around and he recognizes nothing. He’s in a shop, a pastry shop maybe or a cafè, cozy and warm, with peach-colored walls and old-fashioned wall lamps, that give off an intimate, golden light. All around the room small, round mahogany tables, the way they simply don’t exist in Tokyo anymore, and chairs stuffed at the seats with cushions of cream and mint.

The place is empty, closed. Suga doesn’t understand where the voice is coming from.

“Koushi, mon rayon de lune. Ne me fais pas m’inquiéter!”

Again that nickname.

One with the stone Suga’s heart skips a beat. Who is it?

Who is it?

His eyes move, frantic, from one corner to the other.

Can it be…

The basket moves again, and the dozens and dozens of daisies it contains tremble with it. A door in the back falls open, just as a giggle breaks through the shield made of flowers.

Quick steps follow and suddenly, suddenly here she is.

No, here they both are, for behind his grand-maman is Mrs. Devaux too.

They are both young, younger, the way they were in that picture. They are wearing matching, black aprons with a logo on the chest and simple, floral dresses that pinch at the waist and skim their bare ankles. His grand-maman’s is white, with a fantasy of blue peonies, heartbreakingly familiar.

The dress his mother wore when she left him and his father behind.

She and Mrs. Devaux, they are standing there, a few steps away from him, but they don’t notice him. Their eyes are fixed on the basket.

“Koushi...” his grand-maman calls his name but Suga knows at once it’s not him she wants.

He keeps still.

Mrs. Devaux – he still can’t bring himself to call her any other way – is stifling laughter behind her palm. There are two wedding bangs on her finger, simple circlets of gold. Hers and her late husband’s, she mustn’t have married the second one yet.

No. In her eyes Suga still sees a lively light.

The basket moves again, the flowers shake. Slowly a head of silver hair appears, a smooth forehead, a pair of wide, laughing eyes.

Suga, twenty-four years ago.

His grand-maman places her hands on her hips but her mouth curls upwards, too much, too amused to give any credit to the sternness in her voice. “Te voilà!” she cries with emphasis and little him giggles again, moves his small hands around to be picked up.

A daisy got stuck in the button of his yellow overall. Yellow and white.

His grand-maman doesn’t hesitate a second to take him in her arms. “Petit espiègle!” she keeps saying but her voice, like her expression, is nothing but soft.

Adoration, love. So much love.

She kisses his cheek. “ _Mon_ petit espiègle,” she murmurs in his hair.

The Suga before his eyes is laughing still, clinging onto his grand-maman and to the flower now in his hands but he, Suga, the one hiding in the shadows only wants to cry.

In that moment Mrs. Devaux approaches his sister and she speaks for the first time . “La plus belle fleur de tous Paris!” she says and gently strokes Suga’s cheek with the back of her hand.

Her Suga smiles, toothless and wide.

The front door of the shop opens and his grand-maman, with little him still safe in her arms, goes to greet the newcomers. Mrs. Devaux though, she lingers.

For a second she watches them walk away then, unexpected, she turns toward the corner where Suga is still hiding. Her smile turns sad.

“Koushi,” she calls. She waves at him.

Suga starts. By the time he’s collected himself enough to wave back his eyes have opened.

Teal walls again. A roof full of cracks and piles of books and boxes everywhere.

He swallows down his tears and rubs his nose against Onyx’s. She purrs, even in her sleep.

It’s 5:32. Twenty-eight minutes before the alarm is supposed to go off.

He spends them all with his head between his knees, relearning how to breathe.

 

Fukunaga-san meets him in the morning and they rehearse together how to best present the arguments of his thesis. He quizzes Suga, on dates and resources, and in the three hours that pass by he never so much as concedes himself a smile.

“Very well,” he says after Suga is done answering to a series of flash questions.

Both of them are so worked up their breath is coming a little short.

Very well? Very well what?

Suga blinks at him. In the months Fukunaga-san has been his advisor he’s gotten to see less and less of the ‘no-bullshit’ professor persona he projects when in class. Animated discussions and a natural inclination to care too much about his students’ well-being have caused the lines between them to blurry a little, enough so that this sudden severity puzzles Suga now.

“Very well...” he echoes and for a second he expects Fukunaga-san to dismiss him and a bell to ring in the middle of this cafè.

He fidgets. He wants to ask if he did something wrong. The answers he gave all seemed pretty straight-forward and concise – Fukunaga-san hates students who try to disguise their ignorance by dwelling on unrelated, unasked for details – but maybe it’s the thesis that doesn’t convince him anymore.

Maybe the way Suga summarized it wasn’t up to level, maybe-

Fukunaga-san’s hand falls on his arm. “You have this in the bag, Suga. Is this how you younglings say it?”

Oh.

Relief washes over him.

“Don’t jinx it, sensei.”

Now Fukunaga-san laughs. He squeezes Suga’s arm tight. “You are right, you are right.”

Then he takes a small sip of his coffee. “It’s going to be strange, not seeing you around in the hallways, running around with your dozens of books, hassling me over this or that paragraph...”

“I never hassled you, I only asked proper, smart questions.”

He expects Fukunaga-san to tease him some more but instead sensei just smiles. “That’s true.”

“Akagi-san is a very qualified man, one of the few left in the business, and a genuinely decent human being. I think you’ll get on well with him.”

Suga nods. At this point, after the startling severity of a few moments before, he doesn’t know what to expect.

Surely not this.

“I know you are going to do great things, with him or not.”

The certainty in his eyes is absolute. “You are going to be just fine,” he says at last.

And in that moment Suga believes him.

“Thank you, Fukunaga-san.”

“Now go, skedaddle, before I embarrass myself further.”

Suga nods again and hurries to pick up his things. Some of the overbearing heaviness that came from revelations, from his dream of this morning, leaves him. Not a lot, but some.

He waves at Fukunaga-san but at the door he can still hear his voice.

“When will I learn how to let the best ones go?”

 

“He said that, uh?”

“Yeah it was...it was very sweet.”

Daichi smiles at him and slowly drags the pad of his thumb along the corner of Suga’s mouth. “You have a little sauce...” he murmurs but as only quiet echoes in the kitchen he dares move in closer.

Eyes fixed on Suga’s bottom lip he traces it with his touch, feels the softness of it under his skin and Suga sees his pupils dilate. His breath is breaking on Suga’s mouth and the bob of his throat moves up and down with nerves, with what he would like to do.

The kids are in the living room, watching TV with Sachiko-san. Usually when their favourite shows are on it takes cannon balls and trumpets to divert their attention, so they wouldn’t...surely a minute just for them...

Suga looks up at Daichi through the veil of his eyelashes, the way he knows Daichi likes, and nibbles his finger, still resting at the centre of his mouth. Daichi’s breath hitches.

“Suga...”

His name becomes a whimper hissed between the teeth as he closes his lips around Daichi’s finger and sucks. His cheeks hollow slightly with it and it’s enough, enough to witness Daichi’s eyes burning.

“So at what point are you with dinner, kids- oh.”

Sachiko-san appears by the kitchen door and Daichi nearly upends the pan full of sauce in his haste to walk away, walk away from Suga now. Suga covers his mouth with a hand, as if what they’d been doing just now was left imprinted on the colour of it.

“It’s, um,” Daichi stumbles on his words.

From the corner of his eye Suga catches the reason, something entirely different from nerves. Thank goodness for full-body aprons.

For his sake, because Suga loves this man more than words can express, he decides to take it from here. “It’s almost done, so…so if you would set the table…”

He chances a look behind his shoulders. Sachiko-san’s eyes are glittering with amusement.

Good, amusement is good. Considering what she might have seen, simple amusement is excellent.

“Alright, Koushi-kun,” she sing-songs, and calls the kids to give her a hand.

Dinner is delicious. Suga manages to steal three whole bean sprouts before Daichi notices, focused as he is on inhaling his gyaozi.

“Suga I swear!”

“You swear what, Sawamura?”

“If you keep doing this I’ll…I’ll so come close to socking you one.”

For a moment there is only silence around the table, and the sound of chopsticks falling on plates, then chaos. Sachiko-san nearly chokes on her wine in her attempts not to laugh in her son’s face.

Ayame has no such qualms about it.  “Wow dad, that was so lame…” she wheezes between chuckles, then she echoes his words in her best Daichi impression.

Daichi is scandalized by it.

“Ayame how…how can you, have some respect for your father, will you?”

Ayame nods slowly at him, she clears her throat and sits straight in her chair. “You’re right, dad, you’re right. I need to show more respect for you or you’ll really…you’ll really almost hit me. Nearly yell at me.”

“Ayame!”

Daichi is red all the way down his chest. Splotches of colour disappear in the neckline of his shirt.

Suga places a hand on his wrist. “Come on, Dai. I thought that was sweet.”

It was. It’s sweet that Daichi can’t even playfully threaten to hit him. Sweet and hilarious, but the second part Suga better keep it to himself for now…and think of a way to use this new information to his advantage, of course.

Daichi looks down at his hand, then away at the kitchen wall and rubs the back of his neck. “Whatever I just couldn’t…I couldn’t think of anything to say, alright?”

“Yeah, we got that. After all, when food is involved you always turn into a caveman.”

“Exactly. Wait- Suga!”

And again Ayame laughs. Sachiko-san tries to rub at her son’s shoulder in comfort but she, like Ayame, is laughing too hard to. Kaede’s voice though, never joins.

Suga turns to his left, to see the reason behind it. Kaede is smiling, not amused or quizzical, but smug. When their eyes meet he beams at Suga, wide and strangely elated, and Suga realizes his hand is still there, lingering on Daichi’s wrist, carelessly caressing his skin.

“Um.”

Suga lets it go, he moves away but he knows it’s a little too late.

“So, how did your day go, Koushi-kun?” Sachiko-san asks and Suga sighs for this moment of respite.

“It was fine, I saw my advisor this morning…”

He tells it all, but for the dream that still haunts him in the quiet moments.

“He said that? That’s very sweet.”

“Yeah, Fukunaga-san has been the best mentor I could have hoped for. He wrote me a beautiful recommendation letter to present in interviews…”

Daichi tugs at his mother’s dress, suddenly excited like a little kid. “Suga got a job at that publishing company you like. The one that’s publishing classics in simplified language for kids Ayame’s age to read!”

Sachiko-san smiles. “Yes Daichi, you told me.”

“Oh.”

He told her. Was he…does Daichi brag about him?

Suga looks down at his plate and lets his bangs cover his face, his cheeks that are coloring fast of a traitorous red. Jeez, no wonder Kaede understood everything, between him and Daichi they are about as subtle as a pair of flamingos in a flock of ducks. Or whatever.

“Isn’t their main building just a few blocks away from your office, Daichi?”

Daichi shrugs. “Is it?”

Indeed. As if that hadn’t been the first thing Daichi had pointed out after he and Suga were done celebrating the news.

Suga glances up at him and catches the corner of Daichi’s mouth curve upwards in a smile. “Well, that’s nice, isn’t it Suga?”

“It is, Daichi.”

Sachiko-san stands to grab herself another bowl of salad and in that moment Kaede taps Suga’s shoulder.

“What is it, love?”

Kaede brightens for just a second at the nickname but then his frown gets the best of him. “If it’s close where daddy works then it’s really far from where you live, Suga-san.”

“No, not really, it’s only a couple more stops on the metro than when I come here. And I told you, once I’ve graduated I won’t be living where I do now, with Oikawa-san and Aone-san.”

“Oh right, because that house belongs to the school.”

“Yes.”

Something tells Suga that Kaede knew this, that he didn’t forget at all. Without meaning to he tenses.

“So…” Kaede continues and his eyes twinkle with a sort of controlled triumph, “so that means you have to find a new house.”

Alarms start to go off in Suga’s head. “Yes.”

“Close to the job.”

“…Yes.”

Kaede takes a deep breath and Suga knows at once what he’s going to say next. “Our house is close.”

Daichi and Ayame, who had been talking to each other in the meantime – meaning, Ayame was teasing Daichi and Daichi was making poor attempts at scolding her – fall quiet to listen to them. Ayame has that same, triumphant look in her eyes as her brother, but the corners of Daichi’s mouth are tense with nerves.

“Kaede, don’t…”

“Why? Our house is close! If Suga-san lives here he can walk to work with you in the morning and he doesn’t have to wake up really, really early.”

He brings his eyes back to Suga. “You don’t like waking up early, Suga-san,” he says, matter-of-fact and no non-sense. Suga nods, no of course he doesn’t like that, he hates waking up before the sun is even up high in the sky, but he can’t…

He makes to speak but Kaede covers his hands with his own and they are so tiny. Something like a sob raises to Suga’s lips.

Kaede continues, waving their joined hands around. “And also, also if you live here you can sing us to sleep every night and, and we can be together all the time! That’s nice, Suga-san, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

It sounds a lot like paradise. “Yes, that would be nice. Very nice.”

But…

“But I can’t.”

Kaede’s face falls, Ayame’s smile freezes. And Suga’s heart sinks to the bottom of his stomach.

“Why?” It’s Ayame now.

Suga attempts another smile. They’ve been over this before, but it seems that every time it becomes harder to find the right arguments. What argument is strong enough to defeat his children’s wishes?

“Because this is something I need to do.”

None, here’s the truth. So all that’s left for him is honesty.

“Listen, I…you know, Ayame, how you always say you wish you were in junior high already, so you’d finally get to play in a team where everyone likes volleyball as much as you do?”

Ayame nods. “Well, it’s like that, sort of. You want to make new experiences and I need to do that too. Since I came here in Tokyo I’ve never lived alone, not even for a day, and I think now I need to learn what it’s like.”

“I want to learn what it’s like.” _I need to know if I’m capable_. “Also, I really want to know what it’s like to wake up in the morning without Oikawa Tooru’s screams echoing in my ears.”

At that the kids crack a smile. Yet Kaede still asks “But won’t you be lonely?”.

Suga cups his cheeks. “If I get lonely then I’ll just come play with you, if you’ll have me.”

“You promise?”

“I promise. If I manage to find a house nearby it’ll be a lot easier for me to come by, and I’ll get to stay longer too.”

“Yeah but if you lived here you wouldn’t have to leave at all!”

Stubborn, stubborn kids.

If only they knew how much Suga wishes he could say yes.

He takes a deep breath and puts on a smile that is teasing and light. “But if I had a house of my own you could come have sleepovers at my house without certain…fatherly figures around…”

“Hey now, wait a second-”

Ayame’s eyes light up again. “For real?”

Bingo.

“Uh-uh, I would never lie about sleepovers.”

Kaede still looks dejected. Suga would serve him the world on a silver platter if he only could, nothing would make him happier than that but…but he can’t give him this. “I’m sorry, baby,” he whispers, before pressing a kiss on the crease that stands out between his brows.

Kaede nods. “It’s alright. I know you can’t but I wanted to try.”

“You have to come visit us every day though. You have to!” he adds, this time in a tone that won’t allow objections. Not that Suga would ever advance any.

“Alright,” he says. “I’ll try.” And he gives his pinky to shake.

 

He puts the kids in bed that night. He sings to them till their eyes have closed and their hold on him has lessened, then he kneels on the ground and kisses their hair, and lingers still to make sure they won’t wake as soon as he’s closed the door.

“Sweet dreams, my loves,” he whispers.

He kisses them again and at last he rises.

Daichi waits for him. Outside Kaede’s door he wraps his arms around Suga’s waist and holds him so tight their hearts are brushing against each other with each beat.

Suga tries to ask him about it, “What is it?”, but Daichi only shakes his head and walks him outside to the front gate.

“The kids really want you to come live here,” he murmurs to the ivy growing around the fence.

“Apparently. I’m just glad they haven’t grown tired of me yet.”

“I don’t know how a person could ever grow tired of you, Koushi.”

Suga bumps their shoulders together. “We’ve been together for less than two months, Sawamura. Give it some time.”

He means it as a joke, the idea that Daichi could grow tired of him is so terrible to think about he can only express it as a joke, but by his side Daichi still tenses.

He fidgets with a glossy, green leaf. “We’ve known each other for longer than that though.”

Yes, that’s true. A few months more. Enough to have grown to know each other, enough for feelings to develop – _love, love, he loves_ – but no, not long enough  that annoying habits are seen for what they are and not cute quirks. “Daichi, what is it?”

“I was just…I was thinking about what the kids said at dinner. It wouldn’t be so bad, would it? If you-”

Suga doesn’t let him finish. “Daichi. Don’t.”

Thankfully, saying no to him is easier. “Not like this.”

The line of Daichi’s shoulders drops. He looks both disappointed and relieved and in his reaction there is all Suga needs to know. “You are letting the kids’ wishes get before your own.”

“So you don’t want to live with us?”

Through relief appears wounded pride, Daichi’s ears color with his embarrassment.

Suga loves him so much he’s afraid his heart might explode with it. The punch he throws is strong enough for Daichi to take a step back. “I don’t want you to ask me because you want to make your children happy!”

“And you had to hit me to say that?”

“Yes because you’re a goddamn moron sometimes!”

Suga steps close to him once again and covers with his cold fingers the spot where his punch landed. On Daichi’s arm, equidistant from elbow to shoulder. He massages it, as gentle as he can be. “You are always so firm in your beliefs, so self-assured, but when the kids are involved you are all too ready to throw your common sense out the window just to make them happy!”

In Daichi’s eyes flashes a dangerous light. “Yes, because that’s what fathers do, Suga.”

I thought you would understand that, he seems to be saying. I thought you loved me because of it.

Suga does, he loves him, and oh how he wants to kick his ass right here, right now. “You are asking me to move in with you as Ayame and Kaede’s father,” he enounces it, slowly, syllable after syllable even though it tastes sour on his tongue. “You are asking me, your boyfriend, to move in with you, not because _you_ want it, but because your children do.”

“Do you not see how fucked-up this is?”

 Daichi shakes his hand away. His arm rises in a nervous gesture, for a moment he seems about to run his fingers through his hair but mid-movement he stops and his arm falls limp along his side once again. “You are making it sound as if I’d hate having you around all the time!”

“You would probably end up hating it, Dai. We are not ready for that yet and you know it.” Suga takes a deep breath and his eyes never leave Daichi’s as he speaks his next words: “You know what it’s like…and you also know how it ends.”

Daichi pales.

He knows how it starts and he knows how it ends. Putting the kids’ needs and wishes first, forgetting himself, forgetting the person that stands by his side. Divorce papers and a wound left by disappointment that still stings.

Daichi knows. For a moment his features twist, in anger, - how can you bring this up? – but it’s brief. Something he reads in Suga’s eyes, or maybe the sight of him alone, turns it off, quenches it like fire and Daichi deflates. His back hits the fence and there he rests, leaning heavily on stone and metal.

“I’m sorry,” is all he says.

“It’s alright, it takes a while to unlearn bad habits.”

Suga turns the knob of the gate. “Goodnight, Daichi,” he says and makes his way outside.

He’s already crossed the street when an arm suddenly closes around his wrist. “Suga, wait.”

Daichi. Panting, more with nerves than for the effort of rushing to him. He tugs at Suga’s shirt, forces him to come closer.

“I’m still mad,” Suga tells him, loud and clear.

The people passing by stare.

“I know.” Daichi nods. “I know you are.”

“But one of the things I learned from my parents…never go to sleep angry, mom says. And if you can’t do that at least suck it up enough for a goodnight kiss.”

“Does Sachiko-san really say it?”

“Yeah. A kiss gives hope that tomorrow you might be able to work your problems through.”

Suga cups Daichi’s cheek. He’s mad but not so much to refuse a kiss. He’s disappointed but it’ll soon pass, as long as Daichi understands it will pass. “Alright then,” he says and he’s the one to drag Daichi down in a kiss.

Longer than he’d intended to. Against his own he can feel Daichi’s body tremble.

“Can I call you tomorrow morning?” Daichi asks with his breath still broken.

“I’ll call you,” is Suga’s answer.

He presses another kiss on Daichi’s parted lips, then he runs to catch the last train home.

 

It’s the first thing he does the next morning, call Daichi, and the smile in his voice as he answers is enough of a boost for Suga to get out of bed.

He sits in his chair, at the desk covered half in books and half with photographs. He thumbs at the frame of the closest one – he and his dad at an amusement park, Suga with a butterfly painted on his face – and tells Daichi of his dream. Of him hiding in a basket of daisies, of his grand-maman’s voice and her nicknames for him. Of Mrs. Devaux, and how she was the only one who could see him.

“What do you think that meant?” he asks when he’s done.

Daichi stays quiet for a long time, only to say at last “What do you think it means?”

To him Suga says “You’re a lawyer, Daichi, not a therapist,” but in truth he has an answer to that question. And it’s not one so easy to swallow.

He cares. He cares about the woman he came to know, the one who was just a stranger in a flower shop, and the lies she told did not change that. They changed everything else, but not this.

He cares and this only adds to the hurt, it just makes things that much harder, that more complicated. He cares and to his family, to that side of his family, she’s the only link. The one person left who cared enough to come find him.

And that matters to him. It matters more than he’s ready to accept.

“Daichi?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m scared.”

“I know.”

“You won’t-”

For a moment he wants Daichi to promise him that he won’t leave. For a moment he wants to ask just that, a promise neither of them knows whether or not it could be kept, but wouldn’t that be just as unfair as to give children all the say in your relationship?

Bad habits are tough to unlearn. If they are rooted in fear, it’s harder still.

“What was it, Koushi?”

But despite it all, despite what he just said Suga is not as scared than he used to be.

He takes a deep breath, he doesn’t ask what he meant to. “I’m going to see a couple of apartments today. Wish me luck?”

Daichi’s voice is a caress down his spine. “Good luck, my…um, good luck, Sug.”

That moment of hesitation replays all morning inside his head.

 

Apartment hunting is stressful, downright depressing at times seeing the options Suga has based on his – future – income, but thankfully for him it never turns into a nightmare.

Suga gives all the credit to Daichi’s words, and to the shrimp bobby pin he’s wearing behind his ear. In two days he sees twelve apartments, all in the most central parts of the city, all smaller than Daichi’s living room.

He inspects pipes, inquires over heating systems, he nearly breaks an ankle when a step gives in under his weight. He sees unmistakable rat poop in a cubicle three streets down the Sawamura household and narrowly avoids a shoe accidentally thrown at his face by a woman intent on kicking her cheating husband out of the house.

Said woman offers him cookies as an apology then so Suga bears no ill will  toward her, after all he knows his fair share about cheating assholes, but it really is startling how realities can be so different a few blocks apart. Not like he was unaware of it before, a culture as profoundly classist as this doesn’t exactly allow you to be, unless of course you are born in wealth, then in that case you can willingly choose to turn a blind eye to the struggling lower class, but it still leaves him speechless.

Another landlord greets him and he forces the bland, pointless stream of thoughts out of his mind.

This building is fairly new – in a city like Tokyo new buildings appear like mushroom after a storm -  built at the start of this new century, the landlord explains. The pipes Suga inspects are shiny and solid, the heating system new. The apartment is smaller than most Suga has seen but it’s neat and full of natural light.

As he’s stepping in the door a cat throttles between his legs and begins to roll around on the floor. The landlord, ‘call me Ken’-san, apologizes for it but besides telling the little cutie to shoo he doesn’t do much else.

“He belongs to the old lady upstairs,” he explains. “She is a nice woman, so I don’t like bothering her whenever he decides he wants to roam around.”

Suga can’t not warm up at this. He rubs the cat’s belly and takes a look around the apartment.

As he said it’s small. Up the step that separates the entrance from the rest of the house you find yourself face to face with the kitchen. In neuter colors – but that can be changed – and pristine, with spacious cupboards and counters, it’s nice but unassuming. There is space for a moderately sized dinner table and a showcase and when Suga finds a large, perfectly functioning fridge at his disposal.

It’s an open space, except for the bathroom, the only thing that serves to divide the kitchen with the living room/bedroom is a wall, if you can call it that considering it reaches only Suga’s middle, a fence out of cement? He has no clue but it’s a little more added space to the counter surface so he doesn’t care much.

The apartment opens horizontally then so technically Suga could just buy a screen to separate the area where his guests are allowed into and that where only Daichi is welcome. The bathroom shares a wall with the kitchen, reason why the kitchen is developed in length rather than width, and it’s nice. Clearly Ken-san made an effort to make the space livable and the result is pleasant. Clean tiles in greys, greens and blues, the colors of the ocean, spacious shower and new-ish bathtub and even this room is bathed in natural light.

Suga sees many others after this one, all significantly bigger, but by the end of his second day of mad house-touring he hurries over to Ken-san’s building to shake his hand.

He signs some documents and just like that he has a house to live. All by himself, for the first time.

 

 

*

 

For the last day of school Daichi gets off work early to pick the kids up.

As he’s stepping out of the office he loosens his tie and shakes off his jacket and he runs in the drizzle of the rainy season, just for the hell of it, with no cover or restraint. The drops of rain, thin and sharp like needles, nip the bridge of his nose, his forehead, his chin and he laughs.

By the school gate he nearly trips to avoid a puddle and his laughter finds echo in that of another. Familiar and lovely, like beads falling on marble floors.

Suga.

Standing still under the rain, the umbrella unopened in hand, he’s facing Daichi and laughing with his head thrown back to the sky. His hair is wet.

“You were running in the rain too.”

Not a question.

Suga smiles. Beautiful. “Aye captain, but at least I wasn’t tripping.”

Daichi rolls his eyes at him but he’s smiling too. With a pinch on Suga’s side he pushes him forward, in the school yard where dozens of mothers are already waiting.

“I didn’t bring a change of clothes to wear at Ayame’s match later so you’ll have to lend me something,” Suga is saying. “I don’t want to take the metro again to go back home and change.”

Daichi nods, but in truth he only has the vaguest sense of what Suga is talking about. The rain has turned his shirt almost see-through and if he turns a certain way Daichi can see a mark he left on his chest a couple of days ago in the privacy of the laundry room.

He moves in closer, with the excuse of shaking water drops off his briefcase he leans into Suga’s body and whispers in the curve of his neck “You look sexy like this.”

Suga blinks at him, then down at himself. “Oh yeah I’m the poster boy for seduction.”

“Also we are waiting around for our child to get out of school, so please behave.”

“I wasn’t trying to start anything, Sug, just stating facts.”

Suga glares at him through the fan of his eyelashes but one edge of his mouth is already twitching upward.

“By the way,” Daichi adds, casual, as a mother walks past the both of them, “what’s this other bag full of, if not of clothes?”

Yes, because in addition to his frayed school bag, always full of books to the point of implosion on his other shoulder Suga is carrying the leather bag Oikawa and Aone-san gave him for his birthday.

“Please don’t tell me there’s books there too…”

“Here? Oh no, there is a poster I made to bring to Ayame’s match! It’s black and gold glitter on purple, cool, right?”

Daichi looks at the way his cheeks are reddening with enthusiasm and wishes he could kiss him, right here, in front of everyone, senseless until his knees have turned to jelly and air doesn’t seem all that important anymore.

“T-that’s sweet,” he croaks instead.

He reaches out, brief, to caress the inside of Suga’s wrist. Brief, too brief. Suga’s cheeks color a cherry red. “That’s very sweet.”

“It’s nothing, really.”

It’s not nothing, it’s a lot. What it means to Daichi…he can’t even express it.

You are everything.

He’d said so to Suga that day, and it wasn’t just words uttered in the mist of pleasure. It wasn’t the orgasm talking, it wasn’t the heat.

He’s everything.

The bell rings. Daichi forces his eyes away from that profile – that lovely nose, small, upturned, those full, impossibly soft lips, those eyes, nothing more beautiful exists in this world than those eyes – and right away catches sight of Kaede, at the top of the stairs, looking at them both with a impossibly wide smile on his face.

They smile back at him, they wave, and in a second Kaede has thrown himself in their waiting arms.

 

Ayame is a bundle of energy and nerves when they all get home to change.

“You had an umbrella, Suga-san, why are you all wet?”

“Dad how could you forget yours?”

“Dede you…you did nothing wrong. Keep it up.”

She paces the living room and bites her nails to the flesh, she watches as Suga and Daichi dry their hair and even picks out their outfits for the day. Daichi lets her. He knows a thing or two about pre-game stress and having been captain of a team of rowdy…peculiar players, to say the least, he also knows that each person deals with it differently.

In his days he’d get snippy and try to cover up with encouraging speeches. His daughter gets snippy and tries to cover up by bossing people around. Others have rituals, Kaede always draws in watercolors before a party.

Suga’s hands get cold.

Well, colder than usual.

“What are you smiling about?” Suga asks him from behind his shoulder. He’s currently trying to tug his wet pants further down his legs and the sight he makes is…quite something.

Daichi’s smile turns wider. “Your ass squeezed in those delightful boxer briefs.”

They are a bright purple and on his left cheek is a little jellyfish with a sunhat. As he said, delightful.

Suga shakes his butt and the smirk he throws Daichi’s way is enough for his brain to short-circuit. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you today, Sawamura-san, but I like it.”

God, if only they were alone right now…

“Are you two ready yet?”

Ayame’s shrill tones break the wall of sound and cause Suga to nearly trip on the floor with one foot still stuck in the hole of his pants.

“Not yet, dear!” he calls. “But it’s still early so-”

“Get a move on, then!” Through the door can be heard a sharp clap of hands – quick, quick – but before Daichi can come out in just his underwear and scold her like she deserves now, Ayame flies downstairs to bother her grandmother instead.

“Wow,” is all Suga says. He takes the dark, old-ish jeans Daichi laid on the bed for him earlier and starts to put them on. “She is really…”

“Yeah. I was never like this at her age, not even about volleyball.”

“I bet. You were probably the kid who tries to act cool and collected, keep face in front of everyone while internally you were screaming.”

Daichi makes to deny it, screaming is a little too much, but in the end he just shrugs. “Hey, there’s a reason why I was made captain…”

He finishes getting dressed and watches Suga do the same, mourns every inch of soft, pale skin the fabric covers. “You should never wear clothes,” he whispers as the dimples at the base of Suga’s spine disappear beneath his grey sweatshirt. He whispers, but not low enough.

Suga’s cheeks redden. “That wasn’t a very captain-y thing to say…” he teases, the drag in his vowels more accentuated than usual. When his fingers dance playfully on the expanse of Daichi’s chest, Daichi can’t not kiss him.

He can’t not pull him close, so close every pant is shared and the scent of flowers pierces, soaks perfect into his brain.

Suga wraps his arms around him and melts, body and soul in their embrace. He smiles on Daichi’s lips and Daichi loves…

“God, Suga, I…”

_I love…_

Downstairs the doorbell rings. Yurika, no doubt, they decided to meet here so they could all go to Ayame’s match together.

Daichi sighs and moves away. Talk about timing, fucking damn it.

He makes his way out of the room and Suga follows. At the top of the stairs, where no one can see them, they stop a moment and Suga presses a kiss on the curve of his jaw.

“Come on, captain, let’s go.”

Let’s go face the outside world.

 

The school gym is packed. Everywhere noise, everywhere laughter. Splotches of colors are the people who are wearing shirts and hats and gadgets of the two schools and in the back a few signs stand out, waved around by overenthusiastic kids.

Ayame takes one look around and pales. Her hands close around the hem of Suga’s shirt.

“These people are all here for the match?” she asks, as if hoping for another option, another explanation to the crowd of people amassed here.

Daichi understands. He’s been to every single one of Ayame’s matches and only in the semi-finals and finals for the Prefecture Championship there were as many people, but there the crowds were formed by the defeated teams too and their supporters, fans and parents of the teams supposed to play later in the same building.

Here there are only two sets of colors that stand out, only two teams meant to play and Daichi would be lying if he said he wasn’t feeling a bit jittery himself. Suga’s hand brushes against Daichi’s arm, accidentally, and it’s ice cold on his skin.

Indeed, it seems Ayame’s nerves have spread to affect the entire family. Yurika too, is fidgeting with her car keys and Kaede looks ready to hide behind his nana if only one of those strangers with megaphones and pom-poms dares come in closer.

“There is too many people!” Ayame whispers again and at the end of the sentence her voice has become a mousy squeak.

Daichi places a hand on her shoulder and leads her down the hallway that gives to the toilets and changing rooms. “It’s going to be alright, darling, you are going to be great!”

“You can’t know that, dad!”

Oh wow. Usually that’s all it takes before Ayame has found her brio again.

Yurika comes to his aid. “We know how you play, Ayame, and we know you’re going to be great.”

That’s what she says and her eyes are as sweet as her voice, her expression earnest.

Ayame nods but there is still something odd in the way she’s carrying herself. With a deep sigh, so uncharacteristic of her, she tugs once more at Suga’s shirt. “Is that true, Suga-san?”

She seeks for his opinion too. After her father and mother, she goes straight to him.

Daichi’s chest tightens around a heart that feels too big.

Suga looks down at her and smiles a crooked smile, not quite happy but honest. “You are good, Aya-chan. Better than any of the kids your age I’ve seen.”

“And you’ve seen many?”

“I’ve seen a fair amount.”

Then he kneels down, to bring himself and Ayame face to face. “All you have to do is do your best, kid.”

Ayame bites the inside of her cheek. “What if my best is not good enough?”

“Your best is always good enough, mon coeur, even when it doesn’t bring you victory.”

“I don’t get it.”

Suga’s smile softens and with a wince Daichi remembers the calluses on his fingertips, a setter’s calluses, that almost faded with the drag of time. Almost, but not quite.

Volleyball is not something Suga will ever, really be able to quit, even though he still hides his uniform in the back of a closet it’s a part of him. Like his smile, the heartbreaking nostalgia in his eyes, his golden heart.

Now he fixes the collar of Ayame’s shirt, with the same, strong hands that set balls for his teammates, that built plays to win the game, and the fierceness of his gaze is mesmerizing. “A lot of things can contribute to a loss, Ayame. Especially in a team sport like volleyball. Your team’s best will be enough to make you champions one day and the other it won’t be enough to even beat the weaker teams. That’s just the way volleyball is.”

“But if you truly do your best, then no matter the outcome you did good. You won’t feel like it unless you win, of course, but that’s what we are all here for: to tell you so, to cheer you on no matter what and buy you ice-cream afterwards.”

At last Ayame smiles. “I just need to do my best.”

“You just need to do your best.”

“And if it’s not good enough I’ll keep practicing and it will be one day.”

Suga taps her on the nose. “Exactly. Now go change, little champion.”

Ayame nods and her smile now is for them all. “Alright!”

“Alright!” they echo, Kaede louder than everyone else.

Daichi watches his daughter disappear behind the doors of the changing room and he’s never been more proud.

“Oh, and I want strawberry and dark chocolate for my ice-cream!”

 

The principals of both schools give a brief speech on the importance of sports and shake hands to applause and cheers. This is a friendly match between neighboring schools, that is more a way for the kids to say goodbye for the summer than it is competition but as he takes place as part of the crowd Daichi can’t help but wave around the scarf that shows off Ayame’s school colors.

Friendly matches and the importance of sports be damned, before he’s a grown man capable of rational thinking he’s a father.

The teams come out and there Ayame is, second in line after her captain, head held high and expression serious.

“Show them what you got, Ayame!”

She turns around at the sound of his voice and next to him Suga raises his poster.

‘Take to the skies with the wings you built’

And underneath Ayame’s name all in glitter, her jersey number and a weird sketch of a shrimp with crow wings.

Ayame laughs and she brings her hands up – to the sky – to show the wristbands she’s wearing inside out. The iris and the words Suga embroidered months ago are there for everyone across the gym to see.

From his mother to Yurika, his family starts cheering louder and only the whistle signaling the beginning of the match forces them to stop.

Ayame is a starter. She takes place on the left side, in the back line, where Daichi used to start too and his heart is thundering in his ears as he watches her receive a serve with all the easiness in the world. She props herself up on her knees and uses her entire body to accompany the ball up in the air.

It’s a perfect receive. The ball falls in the waiting hands of the setter and the spike that follows is the first point gained.

The people in burgundy and yellow all cheer.

“Yes! Ayame! Yes!” Yurika cups her hands around her mouth so her scream will carry out to their daughter’s ear. “That’s how it’s done!”

Fifteen points later her voice has already started to give out. She was never the kind of person to scream, nor in anger or in any other situation. She’s not used to it.

On Daichi’s other side Suga looks around in his bag and hands her a box of mints, all without ever looking away from the court.

“Thank you, Sugawara-kun,” Yurika whispers.

For the sake of sport, for their children’s sake, the tension loosens a fraction.

Daichi watches Ayame set the ball for her ace and even though the ball bounces back on their side of the court, stopped by the other team’s blockers, he smiles.

 

Ayame’s team takes the first set, a narrow 25 to 22, and Kaede makes his way to sit on Suga’s knees.

“Aya is playing great!” he trills in his ear. The enthusiasm of the game and seeing his big sister doing so well has made him forget just how many people surround him.

He’s become part of the chaos he flinches over.

Suga closes his arms around him, as if to shield him from it all, and bounces him playfully on his knees. “She sure is. She has improved so much in the past months!”

He pulls Daichi in with a sideway glance and a knowing smile, “Her receives are looking particularly solid. I wonder who taught her.”

Daichi shrugs, noncommittal. “I have absolutely no clue.”

Then, after a pause. “To tell it all though, she is not that confident about her setting skills yet…”

Suga’s bangs fall to cover his face and Kaede plays with them, tugs at the curls gently to see them straighten out.

The reply comes just as the teams are making their way on court once again.

“No. No, I guess she isn’t.”

What it entails is still left unclear.

 

The team struggles in the second set. Sloppy mistakes are made, both in defense and attack, and Ayame too feels the weight of it.

Waiting for her teammate to serve, when they are six points behind, she looks straight at them and even from far away Daichi can see the way her jaw clenches.

She reads Suga’s poster again, just as her teammate sends the ball square into the net.

Seven points now. The other team cheers.

This is not good. This is not-

“It’s alright, we’ll get the next one!”

Ayame. Her voice echoes everywhere, bounces on the walls of the gym and overpowers each and every other noise, every other word. She reaches out and high-fives her teammates, nods at her captain and at her coach. Then she looks up and nods at them too.

I’ve got it, she seems to be saying.

And she does.

At the same time he and Suga and Yurika stand, to scream the same exact thing: “That’s my baby!”

Kaede follows a few seconds later. “That’s my big sis!”

She laughs at them, but when the ball comes her way she’s ready to defend her court.

 

They lose the set, but only by two points and the morale is high when they sit on the bench to listen to their coach. All thanks to Ayame’s boost from earlier.

Daichi doesn’t think it’s fatherly bias speaking now.

This break will last longer, to allow the kids more of a breather, so Daichi stands to go grab everyone something to drink. He’s used to long speeches in the courtroom, to loud scoldings and, in the past, yells of encouragement but wow, his throat feels on fire right now.

 “So Ayame could be a libero?”

“Considering how skilled she is in defense, yes, absolutely, but I think she enjoys spiking just as much and she wouldn’t be able to do that if she changed role.”

Suga and Yurika are having a – very tentative – conversation about the rules of a libero, - Yurika was never much of a volleyball connoisseur and in the years they were together Daichi failed miserably at trying to turn her into a fan, - and as surprising as it is, seeing her make an effort after what went down in the storage closet, it’s also very much appreciated.

“Oh because liberos can’t attack, right? I always forget.”

“That’s right, and they also can’t be the captain of their team. This would be another thing to think about for Ayame next year, if her coach asks her again to consider switching position.”

Daichi nods at her when she catches his eyes and decides not to interrupt the moment with questions and simply get everyone a bottle of water.  As he passes them by he squeezes Suga’s shoulder.

It feels tense under his palm.

Suga and Yurika’s relationship – if it can be called such – has been a roller coaster in the few months they’ve known each other, comprised of ups of awkward, mutual effort and interest and of terrifying lows brought by Yurika’s insecurities. Daichi doesn’t expect them to become friends in a day, of course, and he doesn’t blame Suga for being nervous now but if an effort is being made, to meet each other halfway, then it’s all that matters.

For now that’s all Daichi wants.

He’s almost to the vending machines out in the hallway when Yurika reaches him, a little out of breath.

“I thought I’d help you carry the bottles. Kaede said he wants coke.”

Yeah, alright, he’s sure that’s the reason.

He nods anyway. “Thanks,” he says, and so they walk side by side.

Yurika only breaks the silence as he’s dialing the number for a water. “It was nice, what…what Sugawara-kun said to Ayame earlier.”

The real reason behind her effort.

“Yeah well, Suga is nice, Yurika.”

“I never doubted he was.”

One look at her and she’s fast to backtrack, “Alright, I did-”

“Several times,” Daichi adds.

“Several times.”

“Even though he never gave you one good reason to.”

A nerve twitches near Yurika’s mouth. “I’m trying to apologize here.”

Daichi presses another button, this time with a little too much force. The vending machine rattles. “You shouldn’t be apologizing to me, Yurika!”

“I know, I know. God, it seems all I do is apologize to that man...”

A pause and Yurika sighs. Between her brows there is a crease, deeper than Daichi remembers it. “I was just worried that-”

That he would take her place in the kids’ eyes. That the kids could get hurt by any or all the wrong things he could, possibly, maybe, in the future, do or say or imply.

Worried about all the things that could change.

Daichi doesn’t need for her to finish. “I understand.”

He hands her the bottles he already got and looks around the display for the coke Kaede requested. Bottom corner to the left.

He’s looking for more cents in his pocket then and the voices that come from around the corner catch both him and Yurika by surprise.

“I can’t believe he brought him here when his wife is also present.”

“Ex-wife, Saki, but yes, it’s really inappropriate.”

“I never expected it from a man like Sawamura-san…”

At the sound of his name Daichi nearly drops the coins to the floor. His insides tighten.

“Absolutely. Having an affair with his nanny, as if this were a sleazy X-rated movie. But I have no doubt that it was the other who seduced him, what’s his name again? Suga-something…”

“Yes, I always said he was a little too pretty to be a nanny. And cheeky too. You should have seen him at dear Ayame-chan’s birthday party, he was charming everyone with that smile, oh, but I recognized his type immediately, he-”

But whatever other clever ascertainment she must have made regarding Suga’s character remains unvoiced. Kawafuta-san and Fujiwara-san turn the corner and Daichi sees the moment the words die on those serpentine tongues. He hopes they burn their flesh with the poison they contain.

He stands straight, only the tinkling of the coins in his palms alerts him of the fact that he’s shaking now.

“S-Sawamura-san!”

“We didn’t know you were-”

“Of course you didn’t.” The words come before he can stop them and the rage building up in his chest makes him regret none. “It’s not the way you do things, speaking to a person’s face and giving them the opportunity to talk back. No, you would rather whisper behind their turned backs, it’s much easier this way.”

Yurika calls his name but Daichi ignores it.

He is tired, he’s fed up of being judged. He’s fed up of the implications, of the disgusting assumptions made about Suga’s character. He steps in closer to the two women so that all they’ll be able to look at are his eyes.

One of them flinches and looks to the floor but the other, Fujiwara-san, stands her ground and fixes her shirt with pointed care. For a moment Daichi hates her.

“You are talking back now, aren’t you, Sawamura-san? And so far you’ve said nothing to justify your behavior.”

His behavior.

_His_ behavior?

His sight colors red. “That’s because I have no reasons to justify it.”

The coins keep tinkling as his voice too begins to shake. “I don’t know what makes you think you are entitled to have a say in my personal life, but I assure you _I_ have nothing to feel ashamed of.”

Unlike you, he swallows it down.

A sneer, sarcastic. “You are sure about that?”

“Yes.”

The machine beeps with his beverage, he ignores it. “As informed as you think you are you got many things wrong, Fujiwara-san.”

“I am not ashamed of being in a relationship with the former baby-sitter of my children.” He stresses it – ‘relationship’, ‘former’. “I am not ashamed of having found understanding and comfort and warmth in who I used to employ. It was beyond my control and it’s not something I could ever regret.”

Suga’s smile comes to his mind and as these last words come to his lips suddenly he’s calm once more. “There is nothing to be ashamed of when you are so fortunate as to be with the most extraordinary person you’ve ever met.”

Fujiwara-san’s eyes widen and finally, in front of that that assertion Kawafuta-san too raises her own.

In the gym Ayame’s principal announces the imminent start of the third and last set and invites everyone to take their seats once again.

Daichi takes the bottles from Yurika’s hands. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he says, with all the courtesy he can fake, and he leaves without a nod or a bow.

Courtesy may be something he can fake, but respect is most certainly not.

Yurika hurries behind him and before they can walk into the gym again she asks “Is that really how he makes you feel?”

He looks down at her, into her eyes - so similar to those of their son – and he can’t lie. He doesn’t want to. “Yes. Every day.”

Every day, since long before that first kiss.

Something in the way Yurika carries herself changes, she becomes softer. With a nod she opens the doors and ushers him back inside, just as the teams are taking position on court.

“What took you so long?” Suga whispers when he sits next to him.

“I’ll tell you later,” Daichi says and he reaches out to tuck a lock of Suga’s hair behind his ear. Right there, in the middle of the crowd.

The referee blows the whistle to signal the beginning of the match and for a fleeting moment Ayame searches again for their eyes. Together, he and Suga, Yurika, Kaede and her nana, they all cheer only for her.

She grins and with a resolute nod she gets in position.

 

24 to 21. Ayame’s team is ahead.

Only one point left to victory and Suga is crushing Daichi’s hand in a deathly grip. Kaede is standing up in his seat, held steadily by Daichi’s mom, who seems to be praying. Daichi cannot see her two sets to the left but he’s pretty sure Yurika has her eyes closed.

And he…well, he’s biting the inside of his cheek so hard he’s started to taste metal in his mouth.

It’s the other team’s turn to serve. A girl who looks like she could be taller than Daichi, she hits the ball wrong and sends it without strength barely on the other side of the net. Fuck. An accident, almost a mistake in fact, but still a tricky serve to receive.

The ball threatens to fall exactly on the first line, where no one is ready to receive it. The girls stare at it, standing perfectly still. Suga’s nails dig in the back of Daichi’s hand. It’s done, think about the next point, it’s alright, think of the-

But just as the ball is creating a shadow on the floor a hand cuts in, interposes itself between the law of gravity. Ayame’s hand.

She’s on the floor, only one hand raised, and with a determination that borders on anger she slaps the ball into the air once more for her setter to receive. A forearm pass, well-executed. The ball flies above the net.

Two timed steps and it’s Ayame’s captain that soars into the sky. Her arm like a whip breaks the air and she spikes with a strength so terrifying the smack resounds in every corner of the gym.

The ball finally falls, in the other team’s side of the court, and after that it’s chaos.

It’s done.

They won.

“Yes! Ayame!”

Kaede is jumping up and down. “We did it, we did it!”

Ayame turns around to face them and beams. She brings her fist in the air and Suga and Daichi do the same.

 

 

*

 

Despite the call for ice-cream both Ayame and Kaede crash as soon as their heads hit the back of the sofa. Suga takes off their slippers and lifts their legs, moves them until they are both lying down on opposite ends of the couch.

He brushes Ayame’s hair back and kisses her forehead, careful not to wake her, “you did so well, baby”, then he does the same with Kaede. Under Yurika-san’s gaze he does as he would any other day.

There was a shift in her behavior throughout the day, one that occurred immediately after his talk with Ayame, and he can only hope there won’t be any more against him. For the kids’ sake, for Daichi’s. He always claims the guilt for himself when something seems to go wrong between Suga and Yurika-san.

Suga hates the apology he wears  in his eyes anytime Yurika-san acts even a tad colder with him. He hates it, and as much as he can’t blame Yurika-san for worrying, for feeling insecure or suspicious he has no intention of making it become a constant in all their interactions.

For this, for Daichi’s sake and for the kids’, for how important it is to them and to him that this thing between them works out well he walks over to her and gives his hand to shake.

Yurika-san blinks at him for a moment but it’s brief. After the surprise she doesn’t hesitate to take it. “I was going to apologize to you…” she begins to say.

Suga stops her. “There is no need. What I said to you that day in front of Kaede’s school still stands true.” I understand. I don’t need an apology. I don’t want to – I can’t – take your place. “And I know the…the situation has changed but I need you to know that I- I would leave without looking back before hurting the kids.”

“I would- I will do anything not to cause them harm.”

Yurika-san’s hand around his own tightens, not to the point of pain but enough for some warmth to seep in. She says “I believe you” and with a polite nod she lets him go.

By the front gate Daichi kisses him until his whole body is burning.

 

The memory of it still lingers on his lips the next morning, and he uses it to replace the smell of daisies in his nostrils.


	36. All the working parts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Honesty.

He thought he knew how hard it was going to be, leaving this place. Book after book dropped in carton boxes, posters taken down and now his room is just bare walls and sad, grey tile floors, nothing indicates that he lived here.

The chipped edges of the desk, the nail holes where framed prints used to be, the collapsed plane in the closet, anyone could have done those things. They don’t count.

Suga sighs and drags a hand over the surface of his desk. No, wait, the desk. It’s not his anymore.

For the next couple of weeks he’ll go back and forth from this room to his apartment, he still has meetings scheduled with Fukunaga-san and a few last arrangements to make before graduation, but now that he has a place to live it doesn’t matter whether or not he’ll get to spend another bunch of nights here, it’s not home anymore.

It cannot be.

This was always, only a momentary stop. From which Suga will start again.

A knock on his door startles him out of his nostalgia for a moment, “It’s open!”, but when Tooru comes in it only hits him harder. Tooru looks around, to the boxes of clothes, the desk empty but for a few papers Suga still needs to consult, at the floor finally visible without the scatter of books that used to cover it, and he sighs.

“So...it’s really happening.”

His eyes are sad.

This, this most of all is what makes it so hard for him to leave. “I’ll be just a few stops away, Tooru.”

“I know. I know that.”

Suga attempts a smile and it strains every muscle of his face. Tooru notices. “Won’t be the same though,” he says.

No. No it won’t.

Sleeping together on harsh nights, knowing how much Tooru has overworked himself sharing just a look, sneaking food in his gym bag. It will never be as easy.

It will never be like these past eight years, spent a wall away and sometimes without even that much to separate them.

Suga couldn’t tell you who reaches out first. He sees his arms link around Tooru’s waist as if possessed of a will of their own and he tightens them until he can feel the outline of ribs. Tooru doesn’t try to pull away. He pulls Suga closer instead and the hands clinging to the fabric of Suga’s shirt threaten to leave bruises all over his spine.

This weird way Tooru has of loving someone, that blends into pain so damn easily. Suga won’t have to miss this too, he hopes. “It can’t be the same but...but it doesn’t have to be that different.”  He murmurs in Tooru’s chest and Tooru nods with his nose in his hair.

“You’re right.”

“I mean, there’s...there is the phone. And it’s not like we’ll be living miles and miles apart, we’ll still see each other...” With every word his voice rises, in the frenzy that uncertainty brings. He bites his lip to make it stop, make the flow of words stop.

Tooru knows all this. Their friendship is not lost just because Suga is moving in a different neighbourhood. Suga knows all this too. But it’s still hard.

It’s so damn hard.

Tooru keeps quiet for a long while. He watches Suga fidget in his hold, he watches the endless stream of thoughts spill through his bright eyes even in the deafening silence and at last he sighs again. “I’m still gonna miss you, Kou.”

“I’m still gonna miss you too.”

Suga can state all the facts he wants but the one real fact is this.

“Ok?” Tooru says.

“Ok,” Suga replies.

They both sound like they are just getting out of a cold. And that’s ok too.

Suga taps the corners of his eyes. No tears have spilled, no tears, so he laughs instead. “Boy, when did we get so dramatic?”

Tooru raises an eyebrow, one corner of his mouth is already twitching upwards. “Oh Kou-chan, we always were.”

They look at each other for a moment and Tooru leans down to press a peck on his lips. It lingers, more than usual, but it never deepens into a kiss. When they’ve separated their breaths are not laboured, their cheeks are not warm. Their hearts, their hearts are calm.

“Kou?”

“What?”

“Have you already packed all your clothes?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

Unexpected, Tooru smirks.

 

 

*

 

Daichi’s stomach is quivering with excitement as he walks around campus. After a busy meeting with a client nearby going back to the office for lunch break without even stopping by a moment to see Suga had been an intolerable thought.

He’d walked Ennoshita to the station with the promise to get back soon and all the while he’d blissfully ignored the amused looks his –ever-growing impertinent – assistant was throwing his way.

If he’s honest with himself maybe he is exaggerating. Maybe he’s becoming one of those pathetic guys that live only for their relationship and little else, but then again those who call this pathetic may just be bitter loners trying to hide their own envy. And they must not know Sugawara Koushi.

If they did, they would understand why a thirty-three years old man in a fancy suit and expensive leather briefcase is all but skipping around the Meiji University campus, attracting the looks of many flabbergasted students.

Daichi follows the main road and turns left at the sight of a short, bright yellow apartment building. Familiar lawn chairs appear in his line of sight but right a few steps ahead of him a familiar figure captures his attention. About his height, broad-shouldered and with spiky, dark hair.

“Iwaizumi-san?” he calls and sure enough the man turns with a nervous wince.

He relaxes some when he sees who it is though, and even attempts a polite smile. “Sawamura-san, how are you?”

They make small talk in the few meters that separate them from the house – clearly Iwaizumi-san is headed the same way he is through and through – and it’s pleasant. Of the friends of Suga Daichi got to know Iwaizumi-san was always his favourite. When he’d told Suga so, a few days after his birthday party, Suga had laughed. “I wasn’t expecting anything else,” he’d said, “you two are like peas in a pod.”

Daichi is still not sure what to make of this statement, but Iwaizumi-san seems like a reliable guy, steady, with a good head on his shoulders. A little short-tempered but he’d been of tremendous help during the organization of the party, and the way he’d made himself available for anything after knowing Daichi for five minutes top had really cemented the positive first impression Daichi had had of him.

“Suga told me he found an apartment in the city, have you gone see it already?” Iwaizumi-san asks after moments of comfortable silence.

Daichi shakes his head. “No, not yet. The kids wanted to, of course, but Suga would rather invite them when it’s at least a bit furnished.”

“Makes sense.”

Only a few apartments away Iwaizumi-san stops him with a firm hand on his shoulder. His expression has turned suddenly dark. “How’s it going between you two?”

Daichi blinks at him. He’d have to be stupid not to understand where this is going. “Um, well.” He smiles. “Very well.”

Iwaizumi-san’s eyes soften. “Good.” Then, with a menacing squeeze and a too hard pat on Daichi’s shoulder he adds, “Try to keep it that way.”

“Suga has been a good friend to me and an even better one to- um, well, I care about him. He’s had to deal with a lot of shit in his life so...so treat him right.”

These kinds of talks always bothered Daichi, to him it’s not anybody’s place to say things about relationships that are not their own, but Iwaizumi-san is pushed only by his affection for Suga. And it makes Daichi happy to see Suga inspires so much loyalty in others, God knows he deserves it all.

He nods at Iwaizumi-san. He makes no promises, he can’t, and Iwaizumi-san seems to appreciate it more than he would have a declaration of love deign of period dramas. He claps Daichi’s shoulder again, this time only with friendliness, and together they keep walking.

It’s only past the lawn chairs that they hear the noise coming from inside. Daichi frowns, it...it sounds like a song, a song he knows well judging from the beat but he can’t quite place-

“Oh no.” Iwaizumi-san is covering his eyes with a hand.

“What...?”

But “It’s ‘Crazy In Love’,” is the only explanation he gets.

Iwaizumi-san comes in without knocking and the volume of the music causes them both to take a step back.

‘Got me lookin’ so crazy right now, your love’s / Got me looking so crazy right now’

Daichi’s jaw drops to the floor.

That’s Crazy In Love alright, and Suga and Oikawa are dancing to it. Wearing only ridiculous neon shorts and respectively a loose tank top and a teal and white crop-top.

‘Got me lookin’ so crazy right now, your touch / Got me lookin’ so crazy right now’

Aone-san is standing near the couch, looking as if he’s given up on life so thoroughly he’s reached higher planes of existence altogether. Onyx is prancing around the two performers and putting her paws up whenever Suga lowers to serenade her.

Now that’s the general scene. Daichi, however, is not registering anything that isn’t Suga’s ass in those shorts, perky and round and – oh, how he remembers – so wonderful beneath his palms.

‘Got me hopin’ you’ll page me right now, your kiss / Got me hopin’ you’ll save me right now’

His eyes then fall to Suga’s legs, completely bare. The softness of his inner thigh, the line of muscle, the beautiful shape of his calves. Then down still to his slim ankles and his lovely feet, the tattoo that stands out on his translucent skin.

Suga walks to Aone-san, still moving his hips to the beat, and drags him on to the improvised dance floor.

“I would rather not, really,” Aone-san is trying to say but to no avail. Suga and Oikawa sandwich him between their bodies and start dancing against his body.

Aone-san raises his eyes to the ceiling in a silent prayer.

‘Lookin’ so crazy in love’s / Got me looking, got me looking so crazy in love’

And they keep dancing. Until, that is, Iwaizumi-san doesn’t cough, loud, for everyone to hear. The dark tone of his skin makes it hard to tell but Daichi is sure he’s blushing.

Oikawa freezes before him. “Iwa-ch-” he begins to say but he bites his lip before more can come out.

Suga jumps two meters above the floor. “D-Daichi. Oh my God, how long-”

Not long enough, would be his answer if only Daichi were capable of remembering a single word. “Um...” is all he can muster so far.

Thankfully Iwaizumi-san has more to say. “I, um,” but not that eloquently either, “I came by to tell you I’m free tomorrow to help you move.”

He’s talking to Suga but his eyes hardly ever leave Oikawa throughout the sentence and its pauses.

A smile is making its way on Suga’s face and slowly he comes out of his hiding place, also known as Aone-san. “You could have just texted me, Hajime,” he says, in that lilting voice that makes everything sound like a song.

Now it’s Iwaizumi-san’s turn to gape stupidly.

Daichi stands beside him. “His phone was out of charge, didn’t you tell me so just now Iwaizumi-san?”

The look Iwaizumi-san gifts him with reeks of gratitude. “Yes, that’s- that’s what happened.”

It’s clear Suga doesn’t believe him. “Ok then, I’ll see you tomorrow!” he tweets, all dimples and glittering eyes.

Iwaizumi-san nods, more to himself it seems than to Suga and leaves with one last look to Oikawa-san who, the entire time of this exchange, did not moved an inch.

 

Once the calm has been restored, relative calm at least for Oikawa still seems more than a little on edge when he locks himself in the bathroom for a quick shower, Suga leads Daichi to his bedroom with a hand closed tight around his wrist.

“So, what are you doing here?”

The door closes and the click of the lock makes Daichi jumps. His throat dries like the desert as Suga leans heavily on it, still in that ridiculous outfit, still red in the cheeks for the dance. “I, um...”

“I’ve heard this before somewhere,” Suga jokes and the smile on his face has turned crooked, not as shy as before.

“I had...I had a client nearby so I thought I’d...”

A nod and Suga is walking toward him now. “Good thinking, captain.” And with no warning or sign he palms at Daichi’s cock through his slacks.

Fuck, his already half-hard cock.

Daichi shivers. Instinctively his hips move against Suga’s hand, looking for friction, for some form of release.

Suga is still wearing those goddamn shorts. “I’m glad you came,” he whispers in his ear and as he squeezes his length he sounds sweet as a lullaby.

Daichi’s briefcase falls to the floor.

“What do you want, Dai?”

Without a word he answers. He takes Suga’s hand in his, the one that was still touching him, and moves it away, then with nothing more than a grunt he lifts Suga up and sits him on the windowsill.

Suga parts his legs for him. “As you wish, captain,” he says. When Daichi starts to rub himself against him only whimpers and moans replace the laughter starting to spill from his lips.

 

Suga forces him out of his shirt. His fingers draw on the lines of his muscles and through the daze the heat has forced him into Daichi sees the way his pupils dilate. He tugs at Daichi’s belt with insistence and lets the slacks drop and pool at his feet.

“You have to go back to work in this,” he says and still he teases, “we can’t have you show up at your respected law firm with dried come on your crotch.” He presses a kiss on Daichi’s cheek. “Can’t we, my love?”

He thumbs Daichi’s underwear down, just enough for his cock to spring up from beneath the elastic band and Daichi can only nod when slim fingers close around it.

He moves against Suga, all instinct in this moment and Suga wraps his legs around his waist, for balance, to pull him even closer.

“If I had known, ah, that you liked stupid neon shorts so much I would have worn these sooner.”

He scratches Daichi’s back, digs his nails into the muscles that shift and ripple. “Pretty much the day after we met. Gardening with the kids just in these...”

Daichi sucks at the soft skin of his neck and his breath hitches in the most wonderful way. “Would have saved me months of pining,” Suga jokes and the way he’s smiling at Daichi leaves his heart pounding against his ribcage.

“It’s not the shorts...” Daichi closes his arms around him, so tight he can’t move anymore. “It’s you. Just you.”

He pants on Suga’s lips, he groans as Suga starts to jerk him off. It’s difficult, the angle is awkward but fuck Daichi can’t let him go. He wants him this close, he needs him to be so close.

His fingers skim over the hem of Suga’s shorts and the skin there is so warm his whole body shivers with it. Suga’s hand keeps moving around him but he still feels fine, silver hair tickle his chin, with even more intensity he feels Suga’s long, long eyelashes flutter against his cheek.

His whole body is sensitive to Suga, attuned to even the smallest things he does, consciously or not.

Heat pools low in his stomach. He stands still as his legs shake and looks down, at the slim fingers touching him. He looks at the shadow Suga’s eyelashes cast on his cheekbones, and at the impossibly beautiful dip above his cupid’s bow, that makes his lips pout in the way Daichi has always admired.

Maybe Suga senses that he’s being observed. In that moment he flicks his wrist in a sudden move and Daichi has to grip the wall before him not to fall, caught completely by surprise.

“Fuck, Suga...”

Suga raises his eyes, finally, to meet his and Daichi comes to the sight of copper and gold catching the light of the afternoon sun.

 

“Wow. That was quite the lunch break, wasn’t it?”

Daichi laughs at the breathlessness in Suga’s voice. He watches him, still sitting on the window sill, smiling, with Daichi’s come on the band of his shorts and his bare stomach and his hands shake as he pulls his pants up. “Yeah that’s, um, that’s an understatement.”

He tries and tries - three times...ok, five - to buckle his belt properly but the aftermath of the orgasm still lingers underneath his skin, the sight Suga makes is turning his mind cloudy. Steady hands push his away and with a smile Suga does the rest.

“Thanks...”

“Don’t mention it, captain.” Suga is positively glowing with the amusement painted all over his features. His smile turns razor sharp and once he’s done with the belt he pats Daichi’s crotch, playful, irresistible. “I would never let you go out in such a sloppy state.”

In this moment, for the first time, Daichi takes conscience of just how much he loves him. The way he lingers, the way he’s always lingered, on the smallest details – a freckle on the eyelid, a line of moles in the shape of a constellation, the crease near the corner of Suga’s eye that appears when he’s thinking too intensely about something, - how profoundly he values Suga’s opinion, above anyone else’s and even on the smallest things, and just how lucky he is to be here, in this, with him, it all hits him at once. The way it never did before.

He opens his mouth to say it but somehow all that comes out is “I didn’t have any lunch.”

I didn’t have any lunch.

That’s what he says to the man he was planning on telling he loves him. I didn’t have any lunch.

He closes his eyes and sends a prayer to the world, for the earth to open beneath his feet and swallow him, but he would also be fine if lightning struck him instead. He’s not picky.

Suga chuckles, and, clearly because the world intends to shame him more for his stupidity, he presses an incredibly tender kiss on the column of his throat. “Come on then, let’s go make you a sandwich.”

Suga hops down the window sill and changes out of his dancing outfit. There are not that many clothes left in the drawers that he has yet to pack so he just picks an oversized shirt that reaches his mid thigh and calls it a day. His hair is still a mess from their earlier activity and on his legs stand out red spots in the shape on Daichi’s fingertips. He is the very definition of arousing.

Daichi is suffering.

He grabs his shirt and tie from the floor and follows him with no rush, trying with all his might not to stare at the creases in the fabric that perfectly outline the shape of Suga’s ass. “Are you, um, are you sure we have time? For lunch, I mean.”

“It’s just a sandwich, Dai.” Suga throws a smile behind his shoulder. “And don’t put that on quite yet,” he adds when he notices Daichi fidgeting with his shirt.

“Why not?”

A burning look and Daichi’s grip on his shirt loosens. “Because I love what I’m seeing right now.”

Suga takes some food from the fridge and side by side they butter some bread. A kiss on Daichi’s bare shoulder is all the touching they do for a few moments. “Let me enjoy it a little bit longer.”

And who is Daichi to say no to him?

 

Sadly, this domestic bliss is short-lived. A few minutes in comfortable silence and the front door falls open with a loud bang. Daichi only has the time to chant ‘please don’t be Oikawa, please don’t be Oikawa, please d-‘ that Oikawa has appeared before them, panting and irritated.

“I forgot my stupid towel- oh.”

The irritation melts away, leaves for a smirk to take its place. “Oh my.”

Where is lightning when a person needs it, damn it?

Oikawa’s eyes dance from the redness now covering Daichi’s cheeks to the shape of Suga’s bare legs. “Looks like I came back a little too soon,” he says and now Daichi is not sure anymore whether he wants to crawl in a hole and die or punch this guy in the face.

Suga mirrors Oikawa’s smirk with one of his own. “Some would say you came a little too late, Tooru.”

“S-Suga!”

Oikawa blinks in silence for a brief moment then he throws his head back and laughs, laughs till he’s red in the face and his eyes have filled with tears. “Oh, Kou-chan,” he says as he dabs his cheeks, “how am I going to do without you?”

He receives no answer but for a look, melancholic and meaningful that leaves for Oikawa only to nod. Daichi doesn’t understand it, not completely at least, but in the end he doesn’t have to. He butters another slice of bread.

Oikawa walks by, to get whatever it is he forgot and as he’s leaving he makes a show of looking Daichi up and down. He smirks again. “Congratulations, Kou-chan,” he sing-songs.

It’s a way to liven the atmosphere again, Daichi doesn’t know Oikawa well but he knows this much about him at least, but another way to would have been more welcome. Any other way but this one. His eye twitches.

That is, until Suga doesn’t answer in kind. “I know, right?” he echoes and his voice is airy, out of breath. His eyes stubbornly fixed on Daichi’s pecs.

Oikawa leaves when in the room still echoes his laughter.

Now that they are alone again Daichi hurries to put his shirt back on. “We are only missing Aone-san now and then my humiliation will be complete.”

Suga snorts. “Humiliation? Do you ever look in a mirror, Dai?”

He hands Daichi a sandwich then climbs up the counter to munch his own. His shirt rises with the movement, his gorgeous legs completely exposed for Daichi.

Without thinking Daichi places a hand on his – bare, bare – knee. “So, how was your day?” he asks and that’s enough to make Suga laugh.

“We did it all backwards today!” he says.

He’s avoiding the question.

“Koushi...”

A sigh. “It was good. Peaceful. Had a talk with Tooru, packed a little, studied a lot. The usual, you know?”

“Mmm. And did you have any more dreams?”

Under his palm Suga tenses. “Yeah.” It takes him a while to answer just that, but at least it’s the truth.

“Is it still the one with-”

“Yes. It’s always the same one.”

Suga shrugs, forces a carelessness he doesn’t feel onto himself. “At least it’s not carousels anymore,” he jokes, but the dark under his eyes gives too much away.

Daichi comes to stand closer to him and as on edge as Suga is now he makes no move to push him away. “Do you think these dreams are trying to tell you something?” he asks and his thumb rubs at the warm skin beneath Suga’s knee.

“Yeah, that I better spend my nights awake.”

Opening and closing, like a door pushed by the winds seeping through cracks in the window panes. Suga has allowed Daichi to see him for all that he is, for months, long before they got together and Daichi knows, he’s tried to memorize all the beauty and the shadows he’s seen. But even though he’s been allowed to enter it doesn’t mean Suga’s heart will always be open for him to read.

Daichi accepts that, he’s learned to accept it. But there is still something he needs to say, for Suga’s sake. “You should forgive her.”

“What?”

“Mrs. Devaux. You should forgive her.”

Suga jumps down the counter and Daichi rejoices at the fire devouring his eyes. “You think so?”

“I do.”

“I see. Well, since you are so confident may I ask, are you speaking from experience?”

Hands curled into tight fists Suga trembles before him, in the blink of an eye he’s overwhelmed like Daichi has never seen him. A raft in a storm of waves, he moves with them adrift, whenever they hit with uncontrollable violence.

“Have members of your family been lying to you about your blood ties recently? Have you been forced to learn you had an aunt you had no idea about, not by her personally but by a picture you happened to find by accident?”

“No, but-”

“Did you have to reconsider and replay every single thing that’s been said between you two? Wonder how much was a lie and what was real?”

“No, Suga, but really-”

“Then you don’t know!” Suga hisses, he doesn’t scream. His eyes are bright, too bright for the cause to be anything other than tears. “You don’t think I want to forgive her? You don’t think I wish with all my heart that I could just bring myself to forget the lies she told me?”

“I don’t care that she took twenty years to come. I don’t care that all these years she never tried to contact me in any way. I don’t care about that. But I can’t...I can’t build a relationship on lies, I understand why she did it but I can’t.”

“I don’t know how to.”

And just as it came the anger dissipates and they are on calm waters again. Or as calm as the ocean that lives inside Suga could ever be, facing a sky of cloud grey.

Suga places a hand on the counter and it’s steady, the way Daichi never expected it to be. He’s steady, but the line of his shoulders is a defeated slouch.

Daichi brushes his hair away from his face. “I’m sorry,” he tries to say, he’s mortified. He made Suga cry, it was his damn presumption that-

“No.” Suga pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head one, two, three times. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Daichi doesn’t agree with him, he reckons he has lots of things to be sorry for now, but he doesn’t argue. Feeling clumsier than ever he catches a drop falling from the corner of Suga’s eye and asks “You still want a relationship with her, though.”

Suga turns into his palm. “Of course I do,” he says. “She’s family.”

Daichi’s heart contracts under the tenderness he feels. “Then Suga...”

“I know, I know.”

Hands reach out for him and Daichi stands still, steady, for the both of them.

“This might be the only chance I have to know the life I had.”

Suga had already decided, he knew all along that in the end he was going to forgive her, at least so much as to allow them to have a relationship. Seeing him hesitate, hide himself in a shell of composure had made Daichi doubt for a moment, but Suga’s heart was never made for rancour. Strong enough to carry the pain, it never let the poison in.

That’s how Suga is.

Daichi closes his arms around him and feels their breaths sync. “It doesn’t have to be built on lies,” he whispers in his hair.

“What?”

“Your relationship. Now that the truth is out you can start anew...”

“But how do I know the lies are over?”

That’s how Suga is, and this is the fear that haunts him.

They close their eyes as they cling on tighter. Daichi gives an answer, “I don’t know.”

It’s the only answer he can give.

 

 

*

 

On Friday it’s daisies again. He’s the one in the basket and the flowers above him threaten to choke him. Their stems twine around his throat and they squeeze, they squeeze-

He throws up in his brand new toilet.

On Saturday his dreams are golden hues and tender touches, Mrs. Devaux and his grand-maman washing his hair, drying it with gentle fingers.

“It’s the same colour as yours, Cece.”

His grand-maman smiles at him, her figure the only one in black and white.

Suga copes, he goes on with his day but just barely. Truth is, he would rather be strangled by a thousand wilting flowers.

On Sunday everything is different.

He’s not in the shop anymore. The flowers have all died where he is, under the cold snow of December and there is music, jingles in the air. The fairy lights that were hung on the branches of birches and oaks all rush past him to form a continuous, silver line but...no.

No, it’s not the lights. He’s the one who’s moving.

Dread fills him as he looks down, to the spinning platform beneath his feet.

He takes no steps, forward or backwards he doesn’t take any. Maybe if he stands still this dream will end sooner. From the corner of his eye he catches the blue carriage leaving trails in the snow, his mother is already gone.

At the speed with which the carousel is moving he can’t distinguish anything about her, not her hair, not the dress she’s wearing. But it’s her, she’s the only one who could ever leave him like this.

The carousel comes to a sudden halt and Suga trips, only to find himself on the back of the white horse a moment later, safe and unharmed and steady once again.

His stomach is tied in tight knots.

The bridle and reins are of supple leather. They used to be wood, painted wood glued to the horse’s neck before. Without thinking he tugs on them. Once, twice, three times.

And suddenly there is a heartbeat. A breath, warmth.

White clouds erupt from dilated nostrils and the horse whinnies, it shakes its mane. Suga clings onto the reins till the leather chafes his skin. What the fuck is going on?

He speaks it out loud, over and over again and the horse looks at him with beautiful, lively brown eyes. Not sightless anymore but alive. Alive, alive, so wonderfully animated.

“Can I help you, Koushi?”

A voice comes from his left, he recognizes it immediately.

He turns around and the first thing he sees is long, silver hair sparkling against the midnight blue sky. The first and the last.

He sits up in a bed that’s not his own. A room that’s not his own, unrecognizable in the darkness of late night. He makes to stand, to flee, but warm arms wrap around him.

These arms, he recognizes them too.

He falls into them as he chants “It was her all along, it was her all along.”

The silhouette by the trees always had a name.

 

With Daichi’s voice calm in his ear Suga falls asleep again and with Daichi’s body pressed tight against his own he dreams peaceful dreams, of rainy summer days and children’s laughter.

When he wakes Daichi is still there, propped on an elbow and watching him in silence.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“You ok?”

Suga doesn’t nod, he doesn’t pretend. He shifts to his side, so his cheek is resting on Daichi’s bicep, and still drowsy with sleep he tells him everything.

 

He tells Daichi about the dreams, he tells him about the discussions he and Mrs. Devaux used to have. He tells him of that time she dried his hair, and of how she was the first person he told about his feelings for him.

“She was the one who gave me hope that you might feel something too.”

Daichi is stroking his cheek with his thumb, in slow, soothing circles. As Suga’s eyes flutter close he stops to trace the mole near his left eye. “Really?” he asks.

“Yeah. She said something about the way you look at me...” Suga smiles at the memory of that moment, without meaning to. He forces it to fade fast.

“Smart woman, that Mrs. Devaux. Although, to hear everybody say it, I was pretty obvious.”

“Not to me, you weren’t.”

That seems to surprise Daichi. “Really? You always read me so well, I thought you knew...”

“No, not until she...Mrs. Devaux made me see it. I don’t know, maybe I had noticed before but I...it’s hard to believe that a man like you would go after someone like me.”

At this Daichi shifts. He tries to sit up, a scowl ready on his lips, but Suga forces him down with a hand on his chest. “No, don’t leave,” he whines, a fake plea that serves only to make Daichi’s features soften once more.

It works, a little, but the crease between Daichi’s brows stays. “I don’t like the way you talk about yourself sometimes,” he says, with an emphasis that stirs Suga’s skin in goosebumps.

And he’s about to add more when his phone buzzes somewhere in the pile of clothes near the bedroom door. Daichi hasn’t even made his way out of bed yet that Suga’s phone is buzzing too.

“Something tells me I know who this is...”

They share a smile and, sure enough, messages from the kids appear on the screens. Similar, but not identical. Suga’s is longer because for the first time Ayame has noticed the fried shrimp emoji and she needs someone to scream with, but Daichi’s has attached the better picture.

In the one they sent Suga the clouds must have covered the sun. “Not fair! Send me yours, Dai, mine is too bloody dark to save!”

They reply simultaneously but before he hits ‘send’ Daichi asks “Won’t it be suspicious, sending them at the same time?”

Suga’s stomach drops to his knees, then down beneath the soles of his feet. He tells Daichi no, he says he doesn’t think so but through the thundering of his heart, insistent in his ears, he doesn’t hear a word of his reply.

Honesty. That’s what he’s been preaching lately. Condemning Mrs. Devaux for all the things she kept secret, he’s been doing the very same thing to some of the people he loves most. He has reasons, both he and Daichi do, but didn’t Mrs. Devaux as well?

Suga has kept this relationship a secret for two months now, all because he’s scared. He’s terrified of what Ayame’s reaction might be, terrified that she’ll hate him – because, after all, who could ever be good enough to take the place by Daichi’s side?, - to the point of tears terrified that she’ll take it out on Daichi as well, for complicating everything, for making it too damn hard.

Being forced to keep his distance, from the kids he’s come to love so much he considers them his own, forced to leave Daichi for their sake – he’s the outsider here, if something goes wrong it’s only his responsibility to leave. It’s hard even having to think about it.

It makes him sick, the possibility that he might lose it all, everything he has dear, once he’s found the courage to voice the truth.

_“I was terrified that, if I told you who I was, you wouldn’t want to see me again...”_

The same feeling, almost the same, exact thoughts to echo her words on that damned morning. He’d told her he understood but only now he does.

Fear is a strong force to propel action, with an excuse guaranteed to present as an apology.

But it’s not all there is here. They needed to know if their relationship could go somewhere, they needed to know if the feelings they’ve harboured for each other weren’t just feelings destined to fade in the bounds of something clearly defined.

Suga looks at Daichi, he looks into eyes dark with worry and at least of this he’s sure. In this relationship he trusts. He loves.

“I want to tell the kids about us,” he says and he waits for an answer balancing his weight on a red thread of silk.

Before him, where the thread ends, is everything he ever wanted but never dared to share with anyone but himself. Looking down there is nothing.

And nothing would taste too bitter now that he’s seen what happiness looks like to him.

Daichi stills at his words, then looks to the bedroom wall. For a while he says nothing, does nothing but fidget with his phone and bore holes in paint and stucco. He asks “You think we should?” and he doesn’t sound against it, defensive or skeptic.

“It’s your call, Dai. I just want you to know that, if you want I’m ready.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Waiting longer to me  would only make this harder.”

Harder for the kids to forgive. For him not much would change, whether they do this now or in three, four, five months, Suga’s already in deep, he’s already shaking with  every scenario that presents into his brain.

Daichi nods, “I guess you’re right”, and reaches for him again, at last. With his forefinger he traces Suga’s profile, the smooth expanse of his forehead, the bridge of his nose, he fits his fingertip on his cupid’s bow.  “I never wanted to hide you away,” he whispers, warm on Suga’s bottom lip, and he waits for Suga to nod before kissing him.

I never wanted to hide you away. Suga closes his eyes and carves those words on the inside of his rib.

_If I could, I would shout it from the rooftops._

Daichi’s hands come, trembling, to take off his shirt.

_I love you. I love you. I love you._

 

The kids come home later in the evening and they cheer and hug him when they see Suga already there, waiting for them.

“Suga-san, what are you doing here?”

“He’s here to play twister, duh!”

Ah yes, the newest addition to their favourite games. Sachiko-san bought it for Ayame after the glorious victory at last week’s match. Before their wide, twinkling eyes Suga can only nod.

They cheer louder.

“Are you staying, Yurika?” Daichi asks her, like he does often, but today just out of courtesy.

Thankfully Yurika-san declines. “I can’t, I have to finish editing a short movie on the mating habits of hummingbirds...”

The kids snicker at the words, one in particular. Suga pinches their cheeks. “That sounds interesting,” he says and he hopes Yurika-san can sense he’s not lying. Since the first time they met he’s found the work she does incredibly fascinating and if it wasn’t for the way Daichi made love to him just a few hours ago he’d feel almost threatened by it all.

Gorgeous woman, smart, with an interesting job and riveting stories to tell. If this were a competition, in any other matter but that of Daichi’s heart, he knows he wouldn’t even be a worthy rival.

As it is though, impressed and a few inches shorter is all he feels.

He extends his hand for Yurika-san to shake and she does, with a respectful nod and relaxed features. Not quite a smile, but kind nonetheless.

Daichi walks her to her car and once he’s come back the twister mat is already out.

All across the room he can be heard uttering “Oh God”.

 

It becomes quickly clear why.

“Holy sh-um, shoe, Daichi, you are terrible at this.”

“Hey! I...I keep getting the hardest positions!”

That is in no way true. Three rounds they’ve played so far and all were prematurely ended by Daichi tripping on easy positions and taking everybody down with him. He has impressive strength, both in his upper and lower body, if these were standard push-ups he would manage to stay still for hours without so much as breaking a sweat but the problem here is that he’s not flexible, at all. And unexpectedly clumsy too.

“Left foot on red, Dai,” Suga reads and in slow motion he watches Daichi’s feet cross and slip on the mat.

Sure enough Daichi falls on Suga’s back and to avoid being smothered the kids both roll out of the way.

“Daichi!”

“Jeez, daddy, you’re embarrassing.”

At that insult Daichi stands, crimson all the way down his neck, and disappears in the kitchen to get himself a glass of water.

“Oh come on, Dai, we were just teasing!”

“Yeah dad, you’re not embarrassing, you’re just awful.”

Daichi comes back. The scowl is still on his face but his eyes are glittering with amusement too. “Fine then, I’ll sit here for a while and watch just how good you are,” he declares and plops down the sofa with a satisfied sigh.

“I count on you for a good show.”

Kaede takes one good look at the players still standing and decides to join his father as simple bystander.

“Good call, kid.”

Now it’s just between Suga and Ayame. The game starts easy, with classic on all fours poses and a few crossed feet. Then Daichi spins a right hand on yellow for Suga and a few ‘oooh’s rise from the small crowd.

Suga is facing the opposite side from where the yellows are. Left foot in blue and right one in red he can’t just turn around, or he’d switch feet and colours.

“Forfeit, Suga-san, I won’t think less of you if you do.” Ayame taunts him, perfectly comfortable in her position.

Suga glares down at her. One last look at the people watching, he takes a deep breath and bends backward in a bridge position. Right hand on yellow and his back to form a perfect arc he smirks at the amazement poorly hidden in Ayame’s eyes.

“Wow Suga-san!” Kaede has no problem showing it. “You’re amazing!”

Ayame huffs. “I didn’t know you were so flexible, Suga-san.”

“What can I say, my dear, as far as flexibility goes I try to always keep in good shape.”

It takes all of Suga’s power not to chance a heated look Daichi’s way but from the way his boyfriend is coughing, spraying water everywhere and a violent red on the tips of his ears, he’d say his message came across quite nicely anyway.

He and Ayame keep it up for a good ten minutes. In the end it’s a trifle that brings Suga down.

The position he’s in at the end, another bridge, narrower than the other, has forced his shirt to ride up a little, enough to reveal his hipbones and the shadow of his navel. Daichi has started to spin the wheel for both of them now that their positions have gotten harder to maintain and when he prepares to, Suga catches the way he drinks in the sight, his eyes trace every inch of skin that is now uncovered.

A shiver runs down Suga’s spine and when Ayame moves, above him to reach the splatter of green dots her hair tickles him. He resists three seconds, and then he’s down like an overripe fruit, laughing breathlessly and pink in the cheeks.

Ayame stands. “I win!” she yells at the top of her lungs, with both fists raised to the sky.

Suga huffs and not seen by the kids he delivers a vicious pinch on Daichi’s calf. It’s his fault after all.

 

For the last round Daichi and Kaede decide to return on the battlefield.

“You,” Suga points at the other grown man beside himself, “you are going to keep on the low, alright? So that we can reach the dots moving above you and when you finally fall you won’t take everybody else with you.”

Daichi makes to protest but when he sees his children nodding sagely at Suga’s words he knows all that’s left for him to do is cave in.

They manage fine for the first spins. For a few, blissful minutes Suga can rest his hand on top of Daichi’s without arousing suspicion and their positions forcing them so close have them smiling at each other every time they catch each other’s eyes. Which is a lot.

Then Daichi’s other hand begins to shake. One look behind his shoulder and Suga immediately understands why. The kids, smirking smugly up at him, are both using their father as a pillow to keep position.

“This is absolutely unacceptable!” Suga scolds them, with as much severity as he can collect, upside down and with his hair a mess, limbs splayed in every direction.

As a response Ayame headbutts his leg, in an attempt to make him lose his balance.

“Daichi, I think they are trying to sabotage us!”

“Really, Sug? What made you think that?”

Suga shows Daichi the tongue.

They resist valiantly, to more headbutts and taunts and tickling attempts than Suga can count but in the end, after a tickling session to his ribs that was far too effective Suga knows the last of his strength is leaving him.

“Daichi,” he calls, his voice a whisper.

“No, Suga, come on! We can do this!”

“Daichi don’t be foolish. We are exhausted, our aching bodies are giving up on us, we must surrender for our sake...”

Somewhere on his right Kaede begins to laugh.

Suga turns to meet Daichi’s eyes. “But still, maybe there is something we can do...”

He smirks. “If we are going down, I say let’s take everybody with us! Are you with me, captain?”

“To the end of the world, my vice.”

They nod. Daichi hooks his foot under Kaede’s leg, Suga does the same with Ayame’s arm.

They all go down as one, together. In a heap of laughter.

“Not fair, dad! Suga-san!”

“Hey, you were the ones who cheated first.”

“He’s right, Aya.”

“But still, ugh!”

Suga’s fingers dance under her arms and she joins the laughter once more, keeps laughing long after Suga has let her go.

On their backs to face the perfectly intact, pristine white roof they take hours – it seems – to catch their breaths. In the chaos Suga dares rest his temple on Daichi’s shoulder.

It’s Ayame who all of a sudden asks what they all are thinking “Can’t we just stay like this forever?”.

Suga wishes he could say yes. Instead he shares a look with Daichi and they both sit up, shoulder to shoulder to soak up some comfort for their nerves.

The answer to Ayame’s question depends on this moment alone. And they have run out of reasons to postpone the inevitable.

Daichi takes a deep breath and calls the children’s names, with a soberness that starts them both alert.

“Ayame, Kaede, there is...there is something Suga and I need to tell you.”

Another shared look, and for a moment more he lingers to drink in Suga’s features. Then he says, loud and clear and concise “Suga and I, we are together.”

Kaede lights up, the smile on his face so wide it almost makes his eyes close. “Like a couple?” he asks and to their nod he responds with a cheer worthy of a football stadium.

“I knew it, I knew it, I knew t!” he keeps chanting, jumping up and down on his spot until suddenly he’s running to them and throwing his small arms around their necks. “This is so great!”

And he laughs and laughs in the most wonderful way. Suga wants to join him, he wishes he could but Ayame has yet to say a word.

He looks at her and finds her gaze flickering from him to her father and then back on him again.

“Ayame,” he says her name and finally she fixes on one spot, on him.

“How long?” she asks.

“Since my birthday party.”

At that her eyes widen. “That was two months ago!” her voice rises from the flatness she’d forced but any answer they could give is interrupted by the phone ringing.

It’s Chiyo, one of Ayame’s closest friends at school. Ayame turns her back on them all and says she’ll take this upstairs.

Ten minutes later she still hasn’t come down.

 

Kaede is frowning at the stairs, where Ayame just left them, and Daichi, Daichi is pale.

Suga lets another minute pass, he counts it on the clock on the living room wall, then he stands. “I’ll talk to her,” he says.

Daichi tries to stop him but Suga shakes his head. He has to be the one to do this, even though he feels like he’s going to throw up now – underneath the thread, nothing – he has to talk to her. His instinct, this stupid instinct he has that’s always made him feel so – too – connected to these kids tells him Ayame is waiting for him, that she wants clarifications from him. From him and no one else.

So he goes. He takes Daichi’s hand in his and squeezes it, then with a reassuring smile to Kaede he climbs the stairs on unsteady feet.

He only has to knock once before Ayame tells him it’s open.

She’s sitting on the bed, fidgeting with the phone the same way her father had done just a few hours ago. She raises her head when the door clicks closed and Suga is hit once again by how much she looks like Daichi.

That open face, those eyes. The shape of the chin and the colour of her hair. Everywhere he looks there is something of Daichi, but for all that is similar a thousand smaller details are completely different.

The freckles, the shape of her nose, her smile.

Only, only it’s not there now, the smile that had disarmed him even the first time they’d met, kneeling on the sidewalk  surrounded by the mess of his life. Before Daichi, before he was employed to take care of her and Kaede, Ayame was the first person he met.

His sweet, wonderful Ayame.

He kneels before her one more time, so they are eye to eye, and whispers her name again. A request for questions she so clearly needs to ask.

She puts the phone away, face down, and ask she does. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

The first one, the first reason for her escape.

“We wanted to make sure that, that we were good together.” He lets her search him for lies but all she does is furrow her brow.

“Some people, you see, they just don’t work together. For whatever reason they are just not compatible, even though the feelings are there, even though they love each other their personalities, their ambitions, don’t match. Your father and I, before telling you we wanted to make sure that...that this wasn’t just something we both wanted but something we could do as well.”

Ayame nods, slowly, to show she understood. Then she tenses again. “And you are sure now?”

Suga shrugs, helpless. “Yes. Yes, I’m sure.” He can’t know how this is going to end but he’s sure. Of his feelings, of how good he and Daichi are, could be, together. He’s sure. “These past couple of months have been...” The happiest of his life. Through the nerves a smile appears on his face.

He doesn’t hide it.

Ayame looks away from him, as though she can’t bear what she sees painted all over his face. “So this is why you kept coming here? After dad fired you?”

Her tone is cold, so unlike her it makes Suga wince and before his reaction she too seems to shrink on to herself. An act, she’s putting up an act, in the months he’s come to know her Ayame never spoke to him like this, and it pains her now to do it.

Suga recognizes the mask she’s wearing now, he had to put it on himself many times before, but he can’t understand the reasons that hold it to her face.

He speaks to her without restraint. “You know that’s not true, Ayame. You must know it wasn’t.”

Coming over hours before Daichi was bound to return home, the texts exchanged, the laughter, Ayame has to know he couldn’t fake them.

He covers her hands with his and squeezes them with all the tenderness he feels in his heart. “I love you and your brother more than I can express. If you don’t want to believe anything else I tell you, please, at least believe this.”

“I fell in love with you long, long before I fell in love with him.”

Pretty much the day I met you.

Ayame turns her palms up and closes her hands around Suga’s, she holds on to him tight. A sob still breaks past her lips. “I know,” she says, and her voice shakes. “I love you too.”

“I just- I just don’t want you to leave.”

And then the tears come. Suga pulls Ayame to his chest and he rocks her, over and over, endlessly. “Why would I leave, my love?”

“Because mom did.”

She tries to dab her eyes, almost with violence and Suga stops her as her skin turns red. Then, she rests her head on his chest and lets them fall.

“I mean I know she is not gone, I see her every week but she still left, and I don’t want...I don’t want you to leave too. I want you to stay with us.” She clings on the fabric of his shirt. “Promise you won’t leave.”

It’s an order. Suga kisses her forehead and sits on the bed, with her still secure in his arms. “I can’t promise I won’t leave this place, that we’ll always get to see each other every day because, well, if your father and I-” he has to take in a long breath before he can say this, “if your father and I broke up it wouldn’t be possible.”

“But I’ll never leave you, Ayame. Whatever happens between me and Daichi, if you and Kaede...if you still want me to be a part of your life, I promise you’ll always have me.”

He never makes promises, but this, he knows he will keep this. No matter what happens, he’ll keep this one.

Another sob shakes her but Ayame nods, in his arms she relaxes a little.

Suga keeps rocking her, he explains. “We tried to fight this, you know? I...it took me a while to accept my feelings for your father, and even longer to act on them. I was so afraid this would ruin everything. My friendship with you, that between me and Daichi. I was scared I would cause frictions between Daichi and your mother, I was scared of so many things.”

“I still am, to tell you the truth.”

Ayame looks into his eyes. The tears have stopped. “You’re scared?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why did you do it?” She doesn’t ask to accuse or provoke him, but earnest. Honest the way she’s always been. The mask has shattered on the ground.

And Suga answers in kind, with his heart on his sleeves, strangely and completely unguarded. “Because I love your father.”

It’s really s simple as that. “He’s been a wonderful friend to me these past months and, well, you know how he is. He’s kind, he’s so kind. And he’s smart, he’s so adorably awkward, he makes me laugh every day. He’s just...he’s the best man I’ve ever met.”

“I would have never risked this, not in any other case, but I had to now.”

“Because you love him.”

“Because I love him.” He attempts another smile and when Ayame mirrors it with one of her own, it grows wider and wider. So, so relieved.

Ayame is smiling to him. She plays with his hair and for a moment she keeps quiet, rehearsing the last question she needs to ask. “Does he love you too?”

Suga shrugs, he focuses on the lightness he feels to forget the embarrassment that has suddenly hit him. “I don’t know he...he hasn’t said so yet. I mean I think he might but, um, you should ask him.”

A crease appears on Ayame’s forehead. “He didn’t say it yet?”

“No.” Suga’s cheeks turns pink.

“But you did?”

“Yeah.”

“And he didn’t say it back?”

“...No.”

She hides her face in her hands. “He’s such a moron!”

“Ayame!”

“What? He is!” In a hurry she stands and starts to fix her clothes. “Is it obvious I was crying? Jeez, I need to talk to that man.”

The sudden stream of words and her re-found spirit stun Suga into silence and he’s forced to only nod at her questions. He looks at her, searches for signs that would indicate she’s lying, putting up a front to appear her usual, carefree self but the line of her shoulders is not tense, her expression is not tight with lingering somberness.

Maybe reassurance was all she needed, that things would change some but not enough to get scared. That Suga’s place in her life is secure, it’s secured by his affection for her, too deep to be so easily damaged.

For a moment Suga’s mind travels, to Mrs. Devaux, he wonders what she’s doing in the late evening, now that the shop has closed for the day. Maybe reassurance is all she needs too. Maybe the words he spoke as they parted – that he would come back, that he just needed time- were not enough.

Maybe...

Is she waiting for him? Now, can she sense somehow that his thoughts have turned to her?

His heart rises to his throat.

“Suga-san?” Ayame calls his name and she gives her hand for him to take.

Suga does.

“You’ll treat him right, will you?” she asks only when they’ve reached the top of the stairs. She seems not to have real doubts, but she asks as if it’s her duty as a daughter to make sure.

“I’ll try to, like Daichi deserves.”

Her smiles turns into a beam.

 

When they come down Daichi is pacing the floor. Muttering under his breath he is walking in circles all around the couch under Kaede’s unmoving stare.

Ayame clears her throat to catch his attention and he seems to jump three feet in the air. He looks almost frantic between her and Suga but when their joined hands come into view he lets out a deep breath, and with it he folds into himself.

Relief curves his spine.

“Is everything alr-”

Before he can finish he’s interrupted by Ayame running into his arms. She hugs his middle tight and for a moment she hides her face in his chest, as though she’s embarrassed by the way she stormed out. “I’m sorry,” she mutters in his shirt.

Daichi shakes his head. “No, baby, we’re the ones who are sorry.”

The cycle is broken just as Suga is about to echo Daichi’s words, and by Kaede nonetheless. “Ok, everybody is sorry, we get it,” he says and he looks almost annoyed by all this unnecessary drama.

Suga places a hand on his shoulder and with a look he tells him to let them have a moment.

They watch together as Ayame finally raises her head from Daichi’s chest. “Is this why you’ve been so happy lately?” she asks, and Daichi’s eyes, instinctively, come to rest on Suga again.

“Yes,” is all he answers with, and it’s enough to make a blush spread to both their cheeks.

Ayame nods and out of nowhere she slaps Daichi’s waist, hard. “Ow, what-”

She brushes off her father’s protests. With blazing eyes she points at him.  “Now I’ll tell you the same thing I said to Suga-san before,” a dramatic pause, and then, “you better treat him right, dad, or else...”

She leaves the threat hanging in the air, unfinished, and if Suga weren’t feeling so warm all over – it starts from his chest and circulates in him like the blood in his veins – he would laugh at the bewilderment on Daichi’s face.

“Why do I suspect you didn’t ask Suga this way...?”

Ayame shrugs and offers no answers, but she does hug Daichi again. For that he wants nothing more.

Kaede stands from the couch. “Well,” he says as he regards them all with severity, “now that Aya is done acting all drama queen-” “Hey!” “I want a kiss!”

Suga leans down to press one on his cheek. Kaede accepts it gracefully but when both Ayame and Daichi make their way to him to do the same he stops them with a hand. “Not for me, I mean between you two.”

“What?”

“Kaede!”

He pouts. “What? I waited for this, I deserve it.”

“I thought I have to do this all by myself!” he continues, placing himself between Daichi and Suga and tugging on both their shirts. “I even made a plan!”

“A plan?”

“Yes, to make you kiss! There was lots of dancing in it, and candles. Then I remembered daddy doesn’t want me to play with fire so I gave up on the candles but it was a very good plan!”

Suga kisses his other cheek too. “You are so sweet, my chou chou.”

Kaede blushes to the root of his hair but nevertheless it doesn’t work enough to distract him. “Thank you, Suga-san, but now kiss.”

Suga and Daichi look at Ayame. She nods. “Go ahead, I’m curious too.”

“What kind of weirdos did I raise?”

Suga is still chuckling for his comment when Daichi presses his lips on his. Chaste and sweet, it lingers but a second, and then they are smiling too wide to continue.

The kids are disappointed.

“That’s it?”

“Dad, don’t tell me that’s how you always kiss Suga-san, please!”

Daichi’s temper rises. “What? What do you want from me?” He looks ready to start an argument, all to defend his abilities, but Suga is way too tired for this.

With a sharp hit to Daichi’s foot he makes him trip and promptly catches him by the waist before he can drop on the floor. He dips him, the way he’s seen done in too many Hollywood movies, and kisses him so to the soundtrack of whistles and cheers.

 

On his way to the apartment – his new, shiny apartment coated in silence – he passes by the flower shop.

It’s not on his route, but standing at the crossroad he takes the left instead of the right and when he’s noticed he lets his feet lead him. The shop is closed, of course, at this hour of the evening and all the plants are stacked inside, in piles and in chaos. Hit by the moonlight they look like corpses, robbed of their colour they are deprived of their lives, Suga can’t even distinguish the shape of any of them.

He sighs as his forehead rests on the glass.

He’s happy today, now he should be happy. The kids know about him and Daichi and they don’t hate him, and isn’t it something to celebrate, a fear conquered?

Yes, if only he weren’t weighed down by that which still stagnates.

I was honest today, he thinks. He wants to tell her so.

I was honest, can you do the same?

He wants to ask. Mostly though, he just wants to know if it’s in him to give this another chance.

He never had to do it before.

His boyfriends, once they’d left never came back, the door had fallen shut behind them with always too much promptness. His friends never hurt him so. And his mother, his mother never asked for a second chance.

With a spring of his knees he’s standing upright again, supported by nothing but himself. He throws one look behind his back to catch at last the outline of a peony, then he’s on his way home.

Between piles of boxes and sitting on his sleeping bag he calls his father.

“Dad, sorry for the weird hour...”

“It’s ok, kid, I wasn’t sleeping.”

It seems his father never does. “Listen I, I need to tell you something...”

The rustling of sheets on the other end of the line, his father’s tense silence, and Suga finally talks.

 

“She’s here? Celeste is here?”

“Yes.”

“In Tokyo.”

“Yes.”

More silence, those few words all Suga could get out of his father the past fifteen minutes. “Dad?” he calls.

“Dad, what do you think I should do?”

His father sighs. “I don’t know, Koushi. I don’t know.”

In the end he uses only this argument to sway Suga, in a decision he’s already taken. “She loved you very much, kid, at least I know this much. And it’s clear she loves you still.”

Suga stares at his new ceiling, clean white and without a crack. “I understand,” he says.

If love is not enough then what could ever be?


	37. Somebody loved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The apartment, the pictures, a drawing.

What wrongs can truly be forgiven if not even love is enough to justify a person’s actions?

Suga lies awake for hours searching for an answer that won’t come. The bare walls of his new apartment reveal no secrets, the roof above his head becomes a blur as his eyes dry.

In his ear his father’s breathing has evened out. He fell asleep during another one of their silences. Suga had asked him if he was tired any time he’d yawn but he could never bring himself to say yes, concerned as he was.

Silly man, he always does too much to show Suga how much he cares.

Suga nears his phone to his mouth and whispers “I love you” across the quiet, then with a smile he hangs up for both of them.

If love is not enough...

His father’s love is the only basis on which Suga’s happiness was built. His devotion to him, his all-consuming effort to never have Suga lack for something, anything that wasn’t what Suga’s mother took with her, that’s what granted him a childhood he still misses.

His gaze falls to the piles of boxes that surround him and he stands with sudden frenzy, he walks around in the dark on jittery legs, looking for that box he insisted on taking here first. Smaller than the ones filled with books, lighter in his hands.

Beneath copies of literary magazines on which his articles were published, the prints and watercolours that used to hang on teal walls and the pictures framed of his family sits at the bottom the photo album his father gave him.

Suga takes it in his hands and lies down on his sleeping bag again, with Onyx purring in the crook of his neck. His fingers are shaking as he opens it but not too much, not as much as he would have thought.

The first page is a picture he knows, the one with his mother sitting in the hospital bed holding him in her arms. She looks happy here, and scared, afraid that he might disappear somehow if only she dares to blink.

Before her smile Suga can’t bring himself to acknowledge the irony.

He turns the page. Him in a crib, staring with wide, transfixed eyes at the mobile above his head, wooden butterflies painted in blues and purples and golds. The details on each of the butterflies’ wings mark it as his father’s work, he has no doubt about it. Under the picture his father scribbled decades ago: ‘Koushi, 3 months old. Thinks that smiling at inanimate objects will make them come to him.’

Suga laughs despite himself and as he turns to the next picture it becomes louder. This one must be set a few moments after the previous one. His father’s hand is holding the mobile closer to his face and his miniature self is beaming at him as he tries to grab as many butterflies as he can. The caption says: ‘Koushi, 3 months old. Knows that if he smiles at inanimate objects his father will bring them to him’.

And then more and more pictures of him, him attached to the bottle, him sleeping with a tiny fist near his face, sporting a blue tutu and adorable animal onesies, him smiling and reaching out for the someone hiding behind the camera. Him, him, him.

Him and his mother, and those pictures cause a dull pain to settle on his chest. She looks so happy here, in all of them she’s smiling, exhausted but elated at every little thing he does. In one of them – ‘Koushi, 7 months old, and his maman comparing beauty’ – she is holding him close to her, so close their noses are touching and never before have they looked more alike. Never before was it this clear in how many ways they differ. The clashing colours of their eyes – clear azure and plain brown – the shape of their lips. The countenance, the posture.

These last two things though, they can’t be seen in this picture. They developed later, when Suga didn’t have her anymore to look up to. He didn’t have her elegance near, every day before his eyes so that he could imitate her.

Suga turns another page and this, this is the first beat his heart skips. Mrs. Devaux and his grand-maman, for a reason or the other he didn’t have them either.

But they are here now, young, frozen in time with him. They are sitting at a familiar counter, wearing familiar aprons and they are smiling at the Suga who knows them, who’s used to their smiles and their touches, to their voices in his ear.

In the first picture grand-maman is holding him to her chest and laughing as her sister hides behind her back. Suga is trying to prop himself up with his arms to look behind grand-maman’s shoulder but to no avail. There is no one to be found here. The bewilderment and concern painted on his face are absolute. In the next picture though Mrs. Devaux has stood up, her mouth pursed in a ‘boo’, and Suga is laughing and clapping and red in the face for the surprise.

‘Koushi, 7 months old, discovers that his great-aunt knows how to disappear into thin air.’

And there are many like this. Countless pictures that feature him coddled, safe and so, so happy in his grand-maman’s arms, entertained by Mrs. Devaux’s antics.

They raised him. For the first years of his life they raised him while his parents were busy with work. They played with him, they read him books, they taught him new words. They sang lullabies...and they held his hands while he was taking his first steps.

‘Koushi, 9 months, has no intention of waiting for his grand-maman and tante Celeste to catch up!’

Crouched at the edge of the picture his father is smiling, young and happy like Suga never remembers him, and handsome in his elation. He has his arms wide open, waiting only for his son to fall into them, and the light catching his eyes makes them shine too much, too bright. Tears.

His voice echoes in Suga’s ears, the phrase he never fails to speak: I’m proud of you, kid.

He looks proud here too, and worried, and happy and almost lost, as if he wasn’t expecting it to happen this soon, as if he’s not quite ready.

Mrs. Devaux has a hand pressed on her chest and the other safely tucked in Suga’s. The tears have already started falling on her cheeks. On his other side though his grand-maman is beaming, the only person with her eyes dry.

They watch him take each step until he’s safe in his father’s arms again and then they run to him to press kisses all over his face. The last picture is a blur, just a floor and a pair of shoes, and only then it occurs him that his mother must have been the one behind the camera. The last picture, that his father still kept, is her rushing to him.

It takes Suga over half an hour before he’s composed himself enough to continue.

Sobs shake him and he can’t stop them but the tears won’t come, they won’t fall. Onyx wakes and looks at him, she rubs her nose against his cheek.

He wants Daichi. Or his father maybe, the kids to cheer him up with their laughter. But it’s late, he can’t call any of them.

He covers his mouth with a hand and looks at the stars twinkling outside his window. Slowly he falls calm. With a sigh he carries on.

Pictures of his father putting him to sleep. His mother feeding him. His grand-maman arranging flowers with him.

Him and Mrs. Devaux in front of a carousel.

It’s winter where they are. Snow covers the ground, grey like the sky and matted with dirt but around the trees it shines, reflecting the Christmas lights twined around tall branches. He’s wearing his red coat and his cheeks are a bright pink from the cold.

Mrs. Devaux is smiling up at him and helping him mount a familiar white horse. In the series of pictures set there she never leaves his side, always stands by the horse to make sure he won’t fall. Always looks at him as if he holds the world in his hands.

She loves him.

He sees it in every picture, she loves him. She loves him so much she left her home, her family, everything just for a chance to see him one more time. She waited twenty years, but at last she came.

For him, because she loves him.

Suga turns another page and sees the landscape change. He sees his nana, the one he’s known all his life, let him take fast rides with her on the wheelchair. He sees his mountains, he sees his home. The red sea of spider lilies outside his room.

He sees his mother change right before his eyes. He plays, he smiles, he runs in the foreground, in the places he finally recognizes, and his mother is but a shadow behind him. Sitting on the window sill, standing by the kitchen counter, she is miles away from him.

Even as she’s walking down the pebbled steps that give downtown with her hand firmly closed around his her gaze wanders nowhere he can follow, to a sky she’s not familiar with anymore. There are purple shadows under her eyes.

The last picture of the album is him sitting among the spider lilies, alone. His mother is only a figure in the background, her dress fluttering in the spring breeze, her back to him.

There are still pages, blank pages that could have been filled, but beneath this picture is a date Suga recognizes.

March the twenty-third, 1997. Two days before his grand-maman died.

But Suga has already lost her. His grand-maman, who he’ll never see again, yes, but his mother too. She is only a few meters away from him but she’s already left him.

Mrs. Devaux is the only one who came back for him. The only one who tried to make up for a past that can’t be changed.

Suga closes the album and lays it on the floor next to him.

Because she loves him. She loved him then and she loves him still. All these years she never stopped.

And to him that’s enough.

He falls asleep and with the serenity of his choice for once he doesn’t dream.

 

Hajime comes at nine, armed with wrench and hammer and wearing a scowl that suggests he didn’t sleep a wink last night. He watches Suga move around the apartment for a long while after he’s arrived and when their eyes meet above the edges of paper cups he tells him he looks nice.

Suga raises an eyebrow and pointedly looks down at his ratty sweatpants and oversized shirt. “What?”

Then he hurries to add a thanks laced with no less bafflement.

Hajime shrugs. “The last few times I saw you you always seemed a little out of it,” he says between sips of coffee, “you look calm now.”

Suga doesn’t know what to say to that. He feels calm now, even though graduation is only getting closer, and with it all the new responsibilities that being out in the world entail, he is calm.

He knows what he has to do now, and he’s calm. He was given a chance to rebuild his family and he knows not to throw it in the trash as a knee-jerk reaction to his fears. He knows what he has to do and he’s ready, finally he’s ready.

But he doesn’t know how to tell Hajime that. So he smiles, he says “I wish I could say the same to you.” He turns the discussion to less complicated matters, - less complicated only because they don’t involve him.

If Hajime notices his trick he doesn’t call him out on it. The line of his shoulders doesn’t tighten at his words but drops with something Suga recognizes as relief. When he sighs Suga understands he’d been waiting for an opportunity to talk about this from the moment he walked through the door.

Suga leans back on the counter and waits for him to recollect his thoughts. “Did you sleep at all last night?” is all the encouragement he gives.

Hajime snorts and crumbles the empty paper cup in his fist. “No”.

“Been thinking about teal neon shorts, haven’t you?”

At that he winces. “Yeah.”

He says it again, “yeah”, then he turns to the wall, where the brightness of Suga’s eyes won’t reach him. “I went on a date the other night.”

_Fuck._

“Oh.” Fuck. “And how...”

“It was shit.”

Suga swallows down his relief and forces an apologetic expression on his face. “Oh.”

“I mean it wasn’t...it was nice, actually. She was nice, and pretty. While I was walking her home she asked if we could see each other again.”

“I had no reason to tell her no, Suga. No fucking reason at all but as soon as she asked me, as soon as she leaned in for a kiss all I could think about was him. Him and the stupid face he always made whenever I was the one to kiss him first.”

Hajime runs his fingers through his hair, with so much violence for a moment he seems intentioned on ripping it all off. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”

Suga closes a hand around his wrist, doesn’t let go until Hajime’s has gone limp along his side. “Nothing’s wrong with you, Haji. Nothing at all.”

“Doesn’t feel like it.”

“I mean, a person must be really, really fucking stupid to want to go back over and over to the person who-” he cuts himself off, out of nowhere, and when he’s finally able to speak again Hajime sounds almost defeated. “I’ve got nothing to blame him for now.”

He seems to be angrier about this than anything else. “I broke up with him that time, so he didn’t- it’s not like he cheated on me with that...with that guy.”

“Yeah.”

“Suga?”

At last he looks away from the wall, to search once again for Suga’s eyes. “Do you think he...shit, do you think he loves-”

“No.” Suga doesn’t even let him finish. “No, I don’t think so.”

“I won’t tell you that...that Tooru wasn’t shaken by his thing with Ushijima. I won’t tell you that there is nothing left between them, because you know that’s not true. But I know it’s not love. It’s not like what he feels for you. Hajime, it’s not even close.”

Hajime’s smile is so crooked, so weighed down by conflict it contracts soon into a grimace. “I don’t know if this makes me feel better or worse,” he says and when Suga’s hand trails down to take his he squeezes it with unexpected force, he clings on it. “Sometimes I feel that it’s too much. What...what’s between us. Maybe it’s because we’ve known each other since we were kids, we don’t know what life is like without the other around.”

“Maybe that’s why. Maybe it’s not supposed to feel this way.”

“Hajime, I don’t know exactly how it feels to you but it’s not abnormal missing the person you love.”

Suga hurts, a piercing, continuous pain whenever he so much as thinks about the possibility of him and Daichi not being together one day. And it’s been, what?, two months since they got together?

Hajime reads it all on his face and his eyes widen with surprise, “Already?” he seems to be asking and Suga blushes a tender pink on his cheeks and nose.

“Good for you,” Hajime tells him instead and it only sounds happy, genuinely happy for him.

Suga shrugs and drains the last of his coffee, just to give himself something to do.

In the midst of their quiet they begin to unpack the bookshelves Suga’s father sent him all the way from Miyagi, one piece after the other.

They are nice bookshelves, sleek and modern, in grey birch wood and it takes Suga and Hajime half an hour just to unpack and organize all the pieces they are composed of. Since the apartment is so small Suga can’t revert to his old order of things, aka everything shall sit in several piles on the floor, and just as impossible would be asking him to get rid of some of the over hundred of books that are in his possession, so bookshelves were really the only option left.

And they look pretty in the picture on the cover of the small instruction manual, he wonders why he never thought of getting himself some before. He opens the booklet to page one and after three lines it all comes clear. These instruction manuals could be written in Swahili and they would hardly be any more incomprehensible.

Suga blinks down at them, then at Hajime. With a sigh Hajime hands him a wrench and tells him to just do as he says. Blessed words. Blessed man. Saying that Suga is grateful for his presence, and his guidance in these obscure times, would be the understatement of the century.

“I’m so happy you’re here, Haji!”

Hajime doesn’t reply - except for a “pass me that shelf, Sugawara” – but his lips twitch upward all the same with poorly repressed amusement.

It takes a while for him to speak again. But when he does Suga nearly drops a shelf on his foot.

“I think we need to learn how to be without each other.”

He says so, and in the narrow space surrounding them it echoes overbearingly loud. Hajime’s hurt bounces on every wall. “And I mean for real now. Not looking around for each other days after we’ve said we were broken up, not keeping the other’s stuff for weeks in case we get back together, but a complete separation. Like normal couples do when it’s over.”

His conviction grows the more he talks but then, then his voice shakes on the very last word. Imperceptible, but for Suga, who’s standing so close, it’s impossible to miss.

Over.

It breaks Suga’s heart even having to hear it. Since the beginning of his friendship with Tooru he’d envied these two’s relationship. As turbulent as it’s always been, rocky and rough like a punch in the stomach, it always felt so real. Even for the brief time Suga had harboured a small, very embarrassing crush on Hajime, he’d always only hoped these two would stay together.

The pull that seems to bring them back to each other over and over again was always too powerful, too enticing to witness.

But then again this is their life, Hajime’s and Tooru’s, their business and no one else’s. He concedes himself just one question, one last question before he drops the subject for good. “Is this what you want, Hajime?”

And the answer comes quick, parts the air like a whip. “No.”

“Fuck me, no. No it isn’t.”

Suga presses his shoulder against Hajime’s. “Then tell him. Talk to him about this, Hajime, because this limbo you trapped yourselves in is only wearing you down. Both of you.”

It hits him then, the irony of his reproach. He forced himself in a limbo too, for twenty years he walked in circles following just the image of a back clad in a white and blue dress. Twenty years it took him to understand that just because he was walking it didn’t mean he was going somewhere.

And twenty years passed before he was given the chance to make at least part of his story right.

His gaze falls to the photo album, partly hidden by the cover of his sleeping bag. But he will now, he will make this right.

Hajime claps his shoulder, in thanks maybe or in acknowledgement, and Suga sees the same resolution he feels reflected in his eyes. For a moment they press their foreheads close, then they get back to work like nothing has happened.

 

Tooru doesn’t even wait to walk past the entrance before he’s expressing his – completely unasked for – opinion. “I hate it.”

Taka elbows him in the side, comically scandalized by his rudeness, but for his part Suga just raises his eyes to the sky. And makes sure to step on Tooru’s foot as soon as he’s toed off his shoes.

“Ow, Kou-chan!”

“What? It was an accident.”

“Accident my as-oh.”

Hajime stands from the parts of bookshelf he and Suga still need to assemble and attempts a casual nod Tooru’s way. “Hey,” he says and standing so close to him Suga notices the way Tooru shivers.

“Hi.”

They stay quiet for a moment, while Taka and Suga exchange mildly alarmed looks behind Tooru’s back, but in the end Tooru sighs, and with the phantom of his usual flair for dramatics he walks around the apartment counting the steps that take to tread it all. “Twenty-three!” he announces, stepping past Suga’s sleeping bag.

“It’s not twenty-three, you haven’t even made your way back to the kitchen! Also, you forgot the bathroom.”

“Wow, this place even has a bathroom? Good to know, Kou-chan, for a moment I was afraid I’d find a hole in the floor somewhere and nothing else.”

Suga’s eye twitches but he says nothing except for a “to your left”. He knows what Tooru is doing, and he knows why but that doesn’t mean he has to like it.

Apparently Hajime doesn’t like it either and one more comment is all it takes for him to express it. “What crawled up your ass and died, Oikawa?”

Tooru jumps, as though he hadn’t expected Hajime to speak to him so openly. Ever the consummated actor though he composes himself quickly enough. “Excuse me?” he asks and even puts on a haughty look on his face.

Convincing, except that...except that his hands are shaking.

Suga steps between them to cover that sign of weakness. “If you two want to fight then kindly take it out of my apartment.”

“Which might not be a royal palace of the likes you’re used to, Tooru,” he adds with poorly repressed irritation, “but it’s mine and I love it.”

Tooru offers no verbal apology but he bows his head at Suga’s words and for the next hour he says nothing more about the size of his new home.

Taka nudges Suga while they are sitting on the floor, busy with shelves and screws and wrenches. “He didn’t mean any of that, Suga-san,” he tells him in a whisper only they and Hajime can hear, “he’s just upset about you leaving. He was moping around all day yesterday while you were away, and this morning too. I caught him standing by your bedroom door three times at least.”

Suga chances a look Tooru’s way. He seems tense, tired, his shoulders hunched under a weight that can’t be seen, and his eyes are fixed on the shelf he’s dusting, not to wander to the man sitting by his side.

Guilt hits Suga hard, stings his cheek and pierces his heart and as excited as he is about this, moving out, living by himself in an apartment that’s only his, he hates that it had to happen now, when Tooru is going through this all.

He tugs on Taka’s sleeve and forces them even closer. “You’ll keep an eye on him, won’t you?” he asks. Even though he knows the answer this is something he needs to hear.

Taka nods. “Yes. Of course, Suga-san.”

“Jeez, when are you going to drop the ‘-san’ already?”

 

Two hours of hard work and silence and both the bookshelves are up, the plain one along the east wall and the unit with wrought iron details and TV set space on the north wall, to delimit the living room.

Suga dusts off his pants and looks at the result with a pride that borders on glee. “Well, now all I need is a TV! And a coffee table, oh and also a couch!”

Hajime snorts. “Don’t mind that, Suga. We can always go look around some flea markets together one of these days. I’m sure we’ll find some good deals.”

To thank them all Suga whips out the cookies he baked in the morning and makes them all some tea. Luckily for him the kitchen supplies too arrived the other day with the mail.

“These were all wedding gifts my nana bought and then was forced to keep when the couple split before getting to the altar, can you believe this?”

“It’s the price of living in a small town where everybody knows everybody,” Tooru replies sagely. “You never get to skip a celebration.”

“Oh boy, yeah. But at least some good came out of it.”

“Indeed.”

Tooru clinks his teacup against Suga’s and soon the others are imitating him, in the cheer of a job well done.

 

Tooru tells him the truth only as he’s leaving. “The place is nice, Kou-chan. Small but nice.”

“It suits you.” He tries a smile as well but it’s still too bitter to result sincere.

So Suga does it for the both of them. “Thanks, Tooru.”

Tooru gives him a quick nod but before he can go Suga huffs and wraps his arms around his waist. “You moron,” he mutters in the crook of his neck.

Finally Tooru relaxes. “That’s not a very nice thing to say, Kou-chan.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Touchè.”

Suga looks around in his pocket. “I have something for you,” he says and with an awkward shrug of his shoulders he drops a key in Tooru’s palm.

Tooru blinks down at it. “Is this...?”

“Come whenever you want. You...you don’t need an invitation or a reason, just make sure I’m home and come. And don’t lose this, I have two extra copies but I have no intention on wasting another on you!”

Tooru looks into his eyes and without warning he takes him in his arms once again, so sudden he knocks the breath out of Suga’s lungs. He says nothing, not a thank you nor a promise, the grateful kiss he presses on Suga’s lips is enough.

Suga accepts it with a silence of his own.

Hajime’s voice comes from the street, a not so courteous invitation for Tooru to ‘hurry the fuck up already’, and they separate once more. This time for good. Tooru smirks at him “Two copies, Kou-chan?” and before Suga’s blush he laughs, he keeps laughing all the way down the stairs.

Suga screams after him “Give back the key, asshole!” but Tooru is already gone.

Two copies.

Of course Tooru would focus on the most inane piece of information. Two copies, who the hell does two extra copies of his keys? No one, that’s who.

And of course Tooru knew exactly the reason behind all this apparent carefulness.

Daichi. The second copy is meant for Daichi.

Not to give him presently, Suga is not ready for that yet, but one day maybe. One day he will be.

For now there is no rush. Tucked in his bedside drawer, under socks and tank tops, the key is fine exactly where it is. For now, but hopefully not for too long.

 

“Our house is bigger.”

Kaede announces his arrival like this, hands on his hips and a displeased purse of the mouth. He takes off his shoes and immediately begins to inspect every corner of the apartment, moving around with a non-sense air about himself.

Thankfully Ayame waits to follow him and the sternness she’s wearing on her face melts away as she throws herself in Suga’s arms. Suga showers her with kisses from the front door and all the way into the living room and just like that she forgets altogether about hers and Kaede’s plan to hate his new home regardless.“It’s small,” she admits as she takes a look around, “but it has lots of potential!”

“I think so t-”

“Aya! Don’t side with the enemy!” comes the affronted reply behind a tall pile of carton boxes.

“I’m the enemy now, Kaede-kun?”

“Not you, Suga-san. The apartment!”

Another voice answers in Suga’s place, deeper than his own but laced with the same amusement. “Oh, ok. That makes sense.”

A hand falls on Suga’s waist and soon the warmth of a solid body engulfs him. Suga leans on it, completely, without hesitation. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Daichi presses a kiss on the tip of his ear. Quick, while the kids are busy with their inspection he nuzzles Suga’s hair, with an insistence that has Suga snickering in his arms.

“And you got offended that time I compared you to a dog!”

Daichi doesn’t reply, instead he just tightens his hold on Suga’s waist and makes a show of sniffing him louder, in the crook of his neck where Suga is most sensitive. His stubble grazes Suga’s bare throat, the curve of his jaw, his cheek.

“No, you are...stop!” Suga hisses in heavy whispers, but laughter is building up inside his chest. Where Daichi is touching him his body tingles, when Daichi’s breath breaks on his skin he shivers, with a heady mixture of tension and pleasure. “Daichi...”

Thankfully Ayame chooses that exact moment to marvel at the built-in wardrobe. At the sound of her voice Daichi instinctively loosens his grip and Suga wastes no time sneaking out of his arms after landing a swift punch on Daichi’s now exposed side.

“Ow!”

“You deserved it!” Then, at a normal volume “You like the closet, Ayame-chan?”

“It’s so cool! Chiyo has one too at her house, but it’s by the entrance. They use it to hang the coats.”

“It’s a very smart choice.” Daichi walks in the living room too and he looks at every corner carefully. The walls, pristine in their neuter colours, the roof, without a crack.

Suga watches him with the same attention he’s dedicating to the apartment and he fidgets with each expression that crosses Daichi’s face. He cares about the kids’ opinion, of course he does, but he wants Daichi’s approval, in a way he almost feels like he needs it.

Do you like it?, he wants to ask.

Unbidden the image comes, of the children asleep on a king-size bed that is not here yet, of him and Daichi cuddling on a couch that is too narrow but perfect to share in two. Late nights spent talking, early mornings alone while the children are with Yurika-san.

Do you see what I see?

A place where Suga can just be, but not always alone. A place where Daichi can forget about work, the neighbour’s dog, the stress of routine, and where their children’s laughter can be heard in every corner of the house.

It’d be nice, wouldn’t it, Dai?

Daichi turns to him and his eyes are shining. Suga’s intentions are painted everywhere, in every corner of this apartment, in the shape of his lips. It’s clear, and Daichi is smiling. “It’s perfect, Sug.”

And then “I love it.”

“I know it’s small...”

“Yeah, but it’s cozy.” Daichi presses his palm on the wall, feels the coldness of cement under his palm, mitigated by the sun coming through the windows. “It’s full of light.”

He says it again, “I love it.”

Suga looks away from him, to the kids arguing over what colour the couch should be then everywhere at once, taking everything in. His cheeks are warm, he’s warm all over. “I’m glad,” he murmurs, to the little space that separates them.

Daichi closes it in three steps.

 

“Where do you want this, Suga-san?”

“I think it would stay better here.”

“Do you really not want your books in alphabetical order?”

In the matter of a few minutes it’s chaos. Boxes ripped open, furniture moved, chatter of any kind. Suga singles out the last question asked and fixes his boyfriend with a skeptic look. “Daichi, for eight years I lived with my books collected in piles on the floor, I think I can handle them not being in perfect order.”

“Besides, I’ve memorized most of the covers.”

Daichi seems to want to argue, this kind of chaotic order goes against his every instinct, but in the end he caves, he can’t do otherwise in a house that’s not his own. His answer gets lost in the sizzling of hot oil in the pan and he just stares, amused, from his place in the kitchen.

“Let’s order them according to their colours!” Suga suggests at last and he and the kids throw their full attention in this titanic feat, sitting cross-legged on the cold floor with boxes of books that reach the top of their heads.

“Is this book purple or red?”

Every five minutes the same question and for each time Ayame and Suga manage to agree Kaede and Daichi oppose them.

“Just put them all on the same shelf. The shelf of the undecided.”

“Where is Onyx when you need her!”

“Why? Does Miss Onyx see colours too, Suga-san?”

Suga opens his mouth to reply, then he thinks about it and looks to Daichi instead. “Dai,” he calls, forearms on an half collapsed pile of books, “do cats see colours?”

Daichi turns the vegetables he’s stir-frying with a dry flick of his wrist and his bicep bulges with the movement, stretches the fabric of his shirt in the most wonderful way. Suga drops his chin on his arms and watches for a bit, marvels at how confident every gesture is, the seamless way Daichi has settled in this kitchen he’d never even seen before.

Daichi’s voice seems to come from miles away  when, after much thinking, an answer finally occurs to him. “I don’t know, Sug, you’re the one who has a cat.”

“Yeah well, I never thought of asking Onyx about it!”

At that Daichi laughs and the kids with him. The sound echoes, bounces on every wall of the apartment just how Suga had hoped it would.

 

In half an hour they find a location for all of Suga’s books – Ayame counts two-hundred seventy-three with her mouth hanging open -  and the final result is a bright block of colours and tones, that stand out beautifully in the neuter shades of the walls and sparse furniture.

They take a step back to admire their work then, in perfect sync, all turn to Daichi wearing matching, obnoxiously smug expressions on their faces.

“What do you say Daichi?”

“Yeah daddy, what do you say?”

Daichi smiles, as pleased as they are, and he looks so gorgeous, so right in Suga’s new kitchen that Suga’s heart skips a beat.

It’s been months since they got together, months since they first met and his heart still hasn’t gotten used to this all, to the roller coaster of emotions that run through a person who loves, who feels without the restraint of crippling fear

“It looks great,” Daichi tells them and the kids whoop in triumph while Suga stands perfectly still, overwhelmed by everything and nothing.

Maybe it’s this apartment, maybe it’s too small to contain all the things he can’t keep locked inside of him. Maybe that’s why Suga feels so dizzy with it all.

The pictures. His mother smiling at him, loving him. Mr. Devaux and his grand-maman, his father looking happier, lighter than Suga had ever seen him. Mrs. Devaux again, Mrs. Devaux everywhere, in his past and in his present.

His friends, Hajime’s doubts. And now the kids, Daichi.

Nothing has happened today and yet it feels as if everything is shifting, slowly, beneath his feet. Moving somewhere brighter.

And every thought, every word shared echoes between these four walls, in this narrow space he owns.

“Suga?” Daichi calls him.

It brings him back.

Suga smiles and waves his concern away with steady hands. “I’m fine, I was just thinking...”

About what, he cannot say.

Daichi’s eyes still follow him as he moves around the house, walking from one box to another, opening one, dismissing two. They never stop.

When he gets to the piles of boxes near the kitchen counter Daichi places a – impossibly warm, careful - hand on the small of his back. “Koushi, is everything alright?”

The kids are looking at him too now. Suga searches one box, then the one underneath. “Yes, I just- ah! There it is!”

From the depth of a shallow box he takes out the drawing Kaede had done for his birthday. He’d had it framed two days later and now, now it’s finally time to hang it.

Now, in this precise moment.

He gives it to Kaede. “Where do you think it’d look best, kiddo?”

 

With unanimous consent Daichi fixes a nail at the very centre of the kitchen wall. Suga picks up Kaede and together with Ayame’s help they hang the drawing, where it can be seen from every corner of the apartment.

Suga looks at the people surrounding him, he looks at the figures holding hands in a garden in full bloom and gives his fears permission to take flight.

Ayame moves the picture just so, from one side to the other till it’s finally straight, then rests her cheek on Suga’s side. “It’s real pretty,” she says, with a smile softening her eyes.

Suga smiles back. “It is. It’s my little masterpiece.”

He presses a kiss in Kaede’s hair and when his baby squirms, shaken by laughter, he holds him tighter to his chest. On every inch of his body he feels the weight of Daichi’s gaze and he welcomes it with open arms.

He’s not done being afraid, he will never be, but from now on he promises himself he’ll give his fears a harder time, he promises he’ll try to make it more difficult for them to dictate his life.

Because the results, the results of this strive are more than he ever thought he could deserve.

 

 

*

 

Daichi watches Suga. For hours it seems like that’s all he does.

He follows the arc his fingers draw in the air as he talks, he loses himself in the curve of his spine, in the straight line of his shoulders. He traces the contours of his face searching for a way to read it.

He can’t pin down what it is that has gotten him so on edge, but he knows something’s happened.

He looks for clues that might alarm him and all he finds is a weird sense of peace, one that turns Suga’s touch gentler and his smiles much more open.

It’s comforting, but not any less confusing.

“And then, just when we were ready to go Hideaki runs and throws himself in the pool again.”

“No? Really?”

“I swear, Suga-san. His mom was livid, she didn’t let him get in the car until he was all dry again. Took them another hour to leave!”

Daichi eats in silence.

Under the table Suga’s hand comes to lie on his knee and slowly kneads the tension away, one touch after the other. From time to time his fingertips will brush Daichi’s inner thigh but never with real purpose, never with rush.

He meets Daichi’s eyes in a rare moment of quiet, the kids too busy inhaling everything still left on their plates, and he cocks his head to the side in the loveliest of ways.

Is something wrong?, he seems to be saying and the irony of it all draws a smile on Daichi’s face too.

In his quest to understand Suga’s behaviour he ended up acting weird too, and making Suga worry.

“Nothing,” he mouths above his glass of water and when Suga still hesitates he reaches out for him.

Suga’s bangs have fallen to cover his eye, the traitorous lock of hair that always curls in the most bizarre ways is sticking to his bottom lip and Daichi brushes it all away. His thumb grazes the sensitive skin of Suga’s mouth and just as he feels it himself he sees Suga shiver before him.

The silence has turned deafening all of a sudden and when they chance a look around they see Kaede staring at them with his mouth hanging open. For all that he’d planned it he seems almost shocked by the sight of them doing things couples do.

Ayame sighs. “That’s so romantic...”

Daichi drops his arm from Suga’s face and his hand ends in his plate. Smooth.

Ayame covers her face with her hands. “You were doing so well, dad.” She sounds so annoyed, so deeply exasperated by his clumsiness that Suga forgets all about the embarrassment still colouring his cheeks and bursts out laughing.

The kids follow through, leaving only Daichi to try and salvage his dignity. He wipes his hand on the tablecloth, pointedly brisk, and as he’s planning a speech imbued with reproach and guilt-tripping his eyes finally leave Suga to land on the drawing now hanging on the kitchen wall.

Family, that’s how Kaede had titled it to his sister when he thought nobody else could hear him.

Holding hands in a blooming garden. Family. It’s beautiful, a beautiful concept, but most of the time family is just a bunch of rascals who know you well enough to mock you over the same thing for days on end.

“I should have filmed the whole thing!”

“Your face, daddy, I swear...”

“I can’t believe you ruined the moment like that!”

But in a way, Daichi has to admit that’s beautiful too.

 

Onyx comes scratching on the door when the sky has already turned a brilliant orange.

Suga hears her, after years spent together attuned to every sound she makes like a parent who wakes up at night for the barest hitch in their baby’s breathing. He drops the lamp he and Ayame are moving to the corner of the living room and gestures for Daichi to open the door and sure enough, in two seconds flat Daichi finds his mouth and nose smothered by a cat-shaped mass of fluff.

“Hello there, Onyx...”

Onyx meows and rubs her cheek against his jaw, with an insistence that forces him to take a step back.

Thankfully Suga has reached him by now and wastes no time taking her off of him. “She likes your stubble,” he explains while Onyx greets him with a simple lick on the cheek. Then he adds, only for Daichi’s ears, “and she’s not the only one.”

A salacious wink his way and Daichi has turned the colour of lobster. He’s mercifully spared the effort of coming up with a response that is not ‘um’ or ‘ah’ – or even worse, ‘marry me’ – by the arrival of a second cat, one he’s definitely not familiar with.

“Um, Suga?”

“What is it, captain?”

“Did you get another cat?”

“No, wh- oh. Hello there.”

Cat number two strolls inside with impressive confidence and uncaring of everything and everyone he starts to roll around on the living room floor.

Needless to say, the kids are overwhelmed.

“Oh my God.”

“Who is this cutie, Suga-san?”

“Oh my God!”

Suga puts Onyx down and she goes to lie next to Cat-san, flicking her tail whenever the other cat seems to look her way.

“He’s my upstair neighbour’s cat. He comes here from time to time. As you can see he really likes my floor.”

The kids drop to their knees to pet him and he gracefully lets them, with a pleased, piercing meow.

“He’s so sweet!” Ayame is in love. “Do you know his name, Suga-san?”

“Chicorito the Third. But Mizumi-san just calls him Chico.”

“Chico! You’re so cute, Chico!”

Daichi sighs. Just from the tone of Ayame’s voice he knows he will get requests tonight, prayers and pleas paired with teary puppy eyes to finally get them a pet of their own. It’s not like he’s opposed to the idea, mind you, he loves animals, he just knows that if they do get one in the end it’ll fall on him to take care of it. And with the work he does, with how little he’s home already he’s not sure he could do a good job.

He closes the door shut with a sigh.

Focused as he is on the picture his company makes he nearly trips on a bag by the entrance. A very familiar shopping bag.

“Hey, you two,” he calls, “wasn’t there something you were supposed to remind me to do?”

The kids blink at him. Only when Daichi shows them the bag they remember. “Oh yeah!”

“What is this?”

Ayame hurries by his side to be the one to give it to Suga. “It’s a house-warming gift!” she proclaims. After a beat she adds with a knowing smile “It was dad’s idea. He really is a romantic when he wants to be.”

“Ayame!”

“What? I’m boosting you up!”

And to think they had been worried about how she would react faced with the reality of their relationship. She filled the role of inappropriate wingman as if she was born into it.

Suga bites his lip at the conspiratorial wink she throws his way but his expression changes at once when she and Kaede hand him the gift with self-conscious care. “We hope you like it, Suga-san.”

Daichi watches him too, not nervous but quite.

In the end though, he shouldn’t have worried.

“You guys...” Suga takes one look inside the bag and gives them all a brilliant smile. He takes the terrarium out with careful fingers and for each detail he notices his smile turns brighter. “This is...”

He thumbs at minuscule red and white flowers. “This is the prettiest thing, thank you.”

Then, tongue in cheek, “Was it really your father’s idea?”

“Hey! What are you doubting me for?”

But Daichi is smiling too now. Suga kisses the kids first, twice on each cheek, but when it’s Daichi’s turn he has saved only one.

“Close your eyes, you two,” he murmurs a few inches away from Daichi’s face, but of course the only answer he gets is a “no way”.

His mouth is still curved in a smile when it presses against Daichi’s. He keeps it chaste, they both do, but the pliant softness of his bottom lip is still enough, more than enough to send Daichi reeling.

 

Suga places the terrarium on the window sill, close to where his bed is going to be. “So I’ll have something nice to look at when I refuse to get up.”

The reflection of the sunlight on the borders of the bowl catches his eyes and it’s so lovely, the picture he makes right now, that Daichi has to look away, if only for a moment.

He and Suga work a little more. Clothes hung in the closet and folded in drawers, lamps and mugs an clocks laid down in corners, cupboards or on top of shelves, family pictures placed where Suga can always see them.

In the far corner of the living room sits untouched the plant of forget-me-not Mrs. Devaux gave Suga for his birthday. The vase is chipped at the border.

“Do you want this here, Sug?”

Like before Daichi searches Suga, for a reaction, a wince, a darkening of his expression but when Suga focuses his attention on the plant in front of them all that changes is the look in his eyes, that becomes soft, nostalgic.

“No, not here.” He looks around in search for inspiration, then he points to the corner of what will be his bedroom. “What do you say?”

All Daichi can do is nod. He had been expecting a hiding place of sorts, the corner between the two tall bookshelves maybe, or the dark one by the entrance but where Suga is taking it is full of light.

A thought seems to occur to him all of a sudden. “You didn’t...you didn’t buy the terrarium from her, did you?”

Daichi lifts the other side of the vase and shakes his head, with his eyes firmly fixed in Suga’s. “No, of course not.”

“Until you’ve settled things with her I won’t-”

But before he can finish Suga talks over him. “I wouldn’t mind if you did...”

Something did happen then. Something good, that has changed Suga’s perspective entirely, or maybe that has simply lightened his burden.

Daichi smiles at him, at the calm expression in his eyes, and covers Suga’s hand with his own atop the brim of the vase. “Good,” is all he says.

 

The kids make a nest with the blankets and pillows Suga whips out of the depths of a massive carton box and laze together with the cats for the rest of the afternoon.

From time to time they’ll give their opinion on the placement of this or that object but for the rest they just lie down in silence and rub Chico and Onyx’s bellies with unfailing care. Suga and Daichi let them, exchanging smiles from opposite sides of the apartment whenever one of them yawns or rubs their tired eyes.

“Maybe I’ll just keep the living room like this,” Suga says at one point, after nearly tripping over the hem of a blanket, “who needs a couch anyway?”

“Normal people, Sug. That’s who.”

“Oh sorry Sawamura-san, I’d forgotten that at a certain age the comfort of a couch becomes essential to prevent back pains and the likes.”

The kids laugh. Daichi balls a napkin and throws it at Suga and when it drops, sadly, a good three feet away from him Suga joins them, his laughter now the twinkle of bells Daichi has missed dearly these past few weeks.

Suga laughs and his cheeks turn red with it. Ayame sits to tug him down by her side.

“You’ve worked enough for today, Suga-san,” she declares, she won’t hear objections.

Not that Suga looks inclined to give any.

He smiles at her and his eyes crinkle, dimples appear on his cheeks and near the corners of his mouth and it’s the loveliest sight in the world. It’s honest, it’s tender. It’s his heart, once more worn on his sleeves.

Suga sits on the heavy blankets and the kids gravitate to him. They shift from their resting places to throw themselves in his arms and they stay quiet in his closeness, with their faces hidden in the crook of his neck and their eyelids heavy with a sleep that pulls them in, in, even when they are fighting it.

Suga’s expression softens still. Even the veil of his eyelashes can’t hide the way his eyes are shining. Daichi rests his weight on the back of a chair and he’s not surprised, when he finally looks away, to see his hands shake. There is something, something in the way Suga loves his children that destabilizes him, in the most profound of ways.

Happiness does that sometimes. To the people who weren’t looking for it, or at least not in the places where they found it, it comes as a tsunami in calm waters.

Daichi finds himself on an unfamiliar shore and all that is around him now is the endless of a starry sky. Beautiful, and overwhelming.

Suga looks up, at him, when Daichi is not expecting it, and before those eyes Daichi starts. So impossibly bright. They move from him to the windows with clear intent and Daichi goes to lower the shutters walking on cotton clouds.

“Get me that book I left on the bedside drawer,” Suga asks and before the teasing lilt in his voice Daichi regains part of his wit.

“Have I mentioned yet how absurd it is that you have the bedside drawers but not the bed?”

“It’s not my fault my bed belongs to the university!”

“Not saying it is, just saying it’s weird.”

Suga takes the book from him and whacks his thigh with it. Kaede snickers. “Well, to hear you say it, Daichi-san, that’s exactly what I am, isn’t it?”

Ayame tightens her hold on Suga’s waist and moves down to lie with her cheek on Suga’s leg. “How does he always know what to say to shush dad?” she fake-whispers to her brother, loud enough that her voice echoes everywhere.

Kaede tells her, just as loud, that he doesn’t know but it’s really funny how good he is at it and before Daichi’s indignation Suga laughs again.

“He did not shush me!”

“Oh come on, Dai. Here, be my wall.”

Suga scoots over to make space for him on the blanket and while Daichi would love to argue some more – because, again, Suga so did not shush him, he was the one who decided not to answer – the smile beaconing him, inviting him to move closer is simply too beautiful to ignore.

Daichi has always prided himself to be a resolute, firm man but before Sugawara Koushi he may as well be made of putty.

So he sits too, behind Suga, his chest pressed firmly against Suga’s back and as the kids settle to lie half on top of them and the cats cuddle to seek more warmth Suga clears his throat and starts to read. “Once upon a time, in a kingdom divided by greed and inner wars, two families united in the hopes of creating a better world for the children of the future...”

 

Suga’s voice is a soothing murmur, clear but never sharp, it only becomes softer as the sky darkens, and with every yawn the children try to stifle. It caresses Daichi’s ears like the tip of a feather on sensitive skin and as the chapters end and start again his hold on his waist becomes a grip too tight to break.

“At the news Kana took Hiroshi’s hand and squeezed it with renewed fervour. ‘There is still hope then,’ she said, and despite all his protests she pressed a kiss on his rugged palms. ‘You’ve done so much. For once, please, let me take care of you’.”

Ayame’s eyes fall closed once more and Suga keeps reading his lullaby, strokes her hair without ever stopping. “Hiroshi understood nothing but his agreement could satisfy her, so he let himself lie down in his master’s bed while she sewed and cleaned, worked till her delicate hands ached with blisters.”

Under his touch Ayame’s breath deepens and soon Kaede too stops his questions to fall in quiet slumber.

Suga turns another page. “The master noticed immediately the wrinkles in the sheets but when he asked Kana about it she said it had been her to lie down in it. ‘I wasn’t feeling well, father, and my chambers were too far away for my legs to carry me’.”

“She wasn’t questioned further, but two nights later, when he was away on yet another hunting trip Kana found his chambers locked and a guard approaching down the hallway. The man inquired of her whereabouts at such a late hour and all she could do in the shock of the moment was stutter an excuse and run away.”

His voice becomes rough with the effort of being used for so long but he never clears it, for fear of waking the kids. “Hiroshi became sick again and the pain spread to his chest, so strong it kept him from working for weeks on end. Alone as he was in the world, only Kana cared to bring him food...”

Daichi strokes his waist, through the thin fabric of his shirt. “They are asleep now,” he whispers in Suga’s ear when his voice falters once again. “They won’t wake if you stop.”

“They won’t?”

Daichi shakes his head and kisses that secret spot behind the ear that always has Suga shivering in his arms when they’re alone at night.

Suga doesn’t shiver now, conscious as he is of the weight of the children on his sides, but his eyelashes flutter, close on cheekbones and that’s just as delightful. He throws his head back to rest it fully on Daichi’s shoulder and at last the book is closed and set aside where the cats are sleeping too.

“This is nice,” he says and his expression is so sweet, so at peace after weeks and weeks of relentless stress that Daichi can’t not kiss him again.

On his brow, on his cheek. He lingers on his closed eyelid, the one with the freckle at the centre, then nips at the tip of Suga’s nose. Suga opens in a smile.

The hand not intertwined with Ayame’s rises to cup Daichi’s cheek. “I love you, you incorrigible bag of cheese,” he whispers on Daichi’s jaw.

I love you too.

I love you more than you know.

Daichi opens his mouth to tell him, at last, but in this moment Kaede chooses to move.

He and Suga both wait in silence, to see if he’ll wake again, but all he does is change position and smile with his dreams. Carefully they untangle themselves from the pile of blankets and limbs – human and feline alike – curled around them and move to the kitchen not to disturb the kids with their chattering.

Ayame takes a while sometimes to accept she’s tired but once she’s tucked in she sleeps like a log. Kaede, on the other hand, wakes at the smallest things. Not so much if he’s moved or juggled, after all he’s used to his sister’s twisting and moving and trashing night routine, but the barest unexpected sound is sure to have him alert once more. Better not to risk it.

Suga places a pillow under their heads so they won’t strain their necks and presses a soft kiss on their temples. They don’t even stir.

“They are adorable like this,” he whispers after an eternity spent watching only them with his chin propped on his hand. His eyes are glittering gold.

Daichi joins him at the kitchen table and mirrors his position, but his gaze keeps flickering from the kids to him without a moment’s rest. The slope of Suga’s nose, the smatter of freckles on Ayame’s. Suga’s eyelashes, light in colour but so thick and long they entice with every blink, Kaede’s, dark like crows’ wings on his pale cheeks. The greatest joys of his life, and its biggest surprise.

He jokes, “Yeah, I guess they are pretty cute”, and Suga pats his hand in silent agreement.

“You did a pretty good job with them, captain.”

Daichi catches his fingers before he can move away. “You too, Suga.”

“Me? I’ve only been here a few months, Dai. I didn’t do anything.” His tone wants to be light, in line with the jokes and sarcasm of a few minutes ago, happy and careless, but the tightening of his expression forces it somber.

The rueful crease of his brows makes Daichi’s stomach sink.

“You know that’s not true,” he says before that melancholia can set its roots, “Suga, you must have noticed...the way the kids have changed and opened up, the way they’ve grown these past few months, you must have noticed it. I know you did.”

He takes Suga’s chin in his fingers and finally their eyes meet again. “Don’t think for a second that wasn’t thanks to you. Because, Suga, since you came into their- our, our life...we’ve never been happier.”

“Really?”

And Suga still doubts it. “Yes. Can’t you see?”

The same words Suga had said that day in the kitchen, before they made love.

Lips find their way to his palm. “Daichi...” a whisper on his skin.

That turns into a sigh. “I just wish...I wish I’d come sooner, you know? I wish I hadn’t lost all those years of their lives.”

Daichi wants to say he understands, he wants to say that what matters the most, in the end, is that he’s here now. He wants to tell Suga he loves him but all of a sudden Suga freezes.

Realization dawns on him and his features soften, into understanding that speaks of soul-shaking empathy.

He stands, he says “I want to show you something”, and he walks to the bedroom on the tips of his toes. From between the layers of the sleeping bag he takes out something, Daichi already knows what it is before he can catch a glimpse.

“Sachiko-san asked me to come over for dinner.” Suga lays the photo album in front of him. “But I’m afraid I’ll be a little late.”

“I have to be somewhere else tonight.”

And as he says so he opens to the first page. With his cheek pressed sweetly on Daichi’s shoulder he shows him his mended past.


	38. And so it goes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Graduation and more.

There are still boxes gathered in the corners of his apartment. Clothes, posters, CDs, his father’s carvings safe in bubble wrap, so much of his life he has yet to find space for.

So much that can’t fit between these narrow walls.

Suga puts this chaos aside for a while and relives what of his childhood that was caught on camera, with the weight of failed memories on his shoulders he memorizes every kiss Daichi presses on his skin. And they are many.

Daichi turns the pages with care. He pays attention to every detail and he only asks questions he knows Suga can answer, which are not many, not many at all. He searches for Suga’s eyes when his silences get too long but he never calls him out for it, he never pushes.

His hand on Suga’s waist tightens whenever his mom or Mrs. Devaux appear in this universe made only of smiles. And he kisses Suga, again and again and again, everywhere he can reach, not for comfort, not out of pity, but to let him know he’s here.

When the kids wake and it’s time for them to go he kisses him once more, long and tender to the sound of their delighted giggles, and tells him they will all wait for him tonight.

“Mom has already started cooking, I’m sure, so you can’t back down now.” He starts with a joke but his expression turns serious seconds after. His thumb is drawing circles on Suga’s hipbone. “Doesn’t matter what time it is when you’re done...”

Just come. Please.

Suga smiles at him and nods. He pecks the downturned corner of Daichi’s mouth. “Alright. I will.”

The kids are more practical, they make him pinky-promise and then cross his heart. “You need to finish the story of Kana and Hiroshi,” Kaede reminds him.

Ayame just hugs his waist. “So this is how daddy kisses you,” she teases in his ear and when Daichi asks them why they are giggling they just show him the tongue and tell him it’s none of his business.

The three of them leave in a lively flurry of teasing and jokes and at the bottom of the stairs Daichi turns to look at him with the warmest eyes. _Good_ _luck_.

Suga waves. _I_ _love_ _you_.

He shuts the door closed and finally he gets ready. Palms splayed on the kitchen table he bows his head between his arms and breathes in and out, in and out, until the jittering of his knees has subsided enough to let him walk.

About his heart though, the oppressive weight in his chest pounding his ribs to a rhythm without sense, there is nothing else for him to do but keep it the way it is. A mess, yes, but still beating.

 

The shop is open, buzzing with activity like the last time Suga stepped foot in it. Clients stand in line, waiting patiently for their turn while Mrs. Devaux shows a plant of violets to a young woman dressed all in purple.

Four people in total.

Suga steps back. He leans on the cement of the building, where he can’t be seen from the shop windows and clasps his hands tight to stop them from shaking. He’ll walk in as soon as the clients leave, he reasons, there is no point in distracting Mrs. Devaux while she’s conducting her business.

He can wait a few minutes. He waited weeks, he waited twenty years for this, he can wait a little more. Just a few minutes, just the time it takes for them to be alone.

The shaking has not stopped yet. He looks at the people passing by. Businessmen walking home from work, a group of teens laughing wildly at something on their friend’s phone, a couple running after their toddler.

“Yuutarou, I told you, slow down. Your mother can’t run in her condition!”

The usual late afternoon crowd.

The kid almost tumbles down on the asphalt before Suga’s feet and at last his father reaches him, takes him in his arms with a nearly murderous expression on his face. Tears start to fall as soon as the scolding begins and poor Yuutarou-kun is forced to stay perfectly still in his father’s arms for the time it takes his very pregnant mother to reach them.

Suga watches it all unfold. A few steps away and none of them notice him and it’s a relief right now, to only be a figure in the background. His shoulder blades dig into stone as the wheels of the stroller nearly run over his foot.

A relief that nobody sees him.

The sun, for long hidden behind the skyscrapers, leaves them entirely with languid slowness and the lamppost turn on at last, bright on the darkening street. The girl in purple comes out of the shop with a small pot of violets in her hands and after her another, a man in a suit, holding a bouquet of tea roses.

Only two left.

Their eyes meet for a brief moment and Suga gives them both a polite smile. The girl answers him with a courteous nod, the man blushes a little on the tips of his ears.

Only two left. Suga clears his throat and the words he’s been rehearsing relentlessly inside his head scratch like pins and needles. His mouth is dry.

He doesn’t understand why he’s so nervous. Logically there is no reason for him to be. He is not here to pick another fight, he’s not here to scream or cry over his heartbreak, ripping at the seams with a rage that tastes of devastating sadness. He wants to make things right. He wants to try, he wants to give this a try.

A chance to regain what was lost and maybe, finally begin to recover at last.

It’s a good thing. He knows it’s the right thing.

But not all the right things end well.

If love is not enough...

The lies, the years spent apart. He chose to forgive the first, but how can the past twenty years be forgotten? How can a time so long be filled in? It’s like wanting to stick a band-aid on a gash that exposes the bone. How is that supposed to work?

But he has to try. At least he has to try.

If love is not enough...

Well then he will fucking make it enough.

The last two people come out, they leave together and now Suga has no more excuses to hesitate.

He steps out of the shadow of the building and into the light of the lamppost and makes the wind chimes at the door twinkle.

“Good evening, how can I serve-oh.” The forced cheer in his great-aunt’s voice disappears, to leave place to a much more honest shock.

She looks tired, even more so than the last time Suga saw her. His fault again, after all what good could do the reassurances he gave when in the end he still turned his back and left?

He clears his throat again. “Hi. Can I come in?”

Please say yes. Please say yes. Please...

“Yes. Of course, mon ray- of course, Koushi-kun.”

Like last time Suga turns the sign at the door – CLOSED – but now, when he finally makes his way to her, he’s composed, he’s himself. He says ‘hi’ one more time.

Mrs. Devaux’s eyes are already filling with tears. “It’s so good to see you,” she whispers and her voice shakes, like Suga’s hands had done just minutes before. “H-how are you?”

“Well. I’m, I’m doing ok. You?”

She nods. It’s not true.

The line of her shoulders is tight and next to the thin branches of a growing lemon tree she looks impossibly tiny, as though she doesn’t wish to occupy any amount of space, no matter how insignificant. She tells him “I’ve been waiting for you,” and immediately she seems to regret it.

Suga walks another step toward her and takes the handkerchief she’s wringing in her hands. He starts to smoothen the wrinkles at the edges. “I’m sorry I took so long.”

“I should have called at least, I should have made sure- but I didn’t know what to say. I needed time to think.”

He folds the handkerchief into a perfect square and hands it to Mrs. Devaux again. The touch of his fingers against her palm is all it takes to make her raise her eyes at last.

He didn’t move away just now. That has to count for something, doesn’t it?

It has to.

Suga sees it all unfold in her gaze and covers her hands with his own. Her shoulders have started to shake as well.

“Why don’t we sit down?” he asks and she nods, earnest to please him in anything.

It breaks his heart. That irregular mess of sudden accelerations and nervous, sluggish crawls tightens in his chest, with everything that has happened these past few days, with how little consideration he showed for her feelings.

He should have called.

He should have made sure that she was ok.

“I’m sorry,” he says again but this time Mrs. Devaux shakes her head, firm and resolute for the first time.

“No. No, Koushi, you have nothing to be sorry for, you hear me? It was...it was my fault.”

Her voice hitches with a sob but she continues, unshrinking, before Suga can interrupt her with another mea culpa. “It was on me, everything that’s happened, it was all on me. I don’t blame you for reacting the way you did. And neither should you.”

“But you are Cece’s grandson after all. It’s in your genes, wanting to carry the world on your shoulders.” It’s easy spoken by her voice, that name, that comparison.

Suga flinches before it. The pictures replay in a film behind his eyelids, starring smiles as easy as her words and joined hands, the sound of laughter Suga has no recollection of but that he can still hear through the patinate paper.

“I found more photos,” he says. Something, anything to stop the whirlwind of images that is making him dizzy now to the point of nausea. “My father gave me an album, there were pictures of us. You and me, grand-maman...”

An afterthought. “Mom was there too.”

He takes a deep breath and forces his focus only to the reality in front of him. Mrs. Devaux is not shaking anymore but more than ever her eyes look impossibly bright under the neon lights of the shop. She tries to say something but her voice falls flat, too soon for him to make sense of anything.

So he takes it upon himself not to let this conversation die. “You raised me,” he says, looks for a confirmation he doesn’t need.

“I did.”

“You took me...you took me on the carousel...”

Her expression clears a little of the melancholia that’s weighing on them both. “I’d forgotten about that.”

“It was an old thing, close to the cafè Cece and I used to work at. I’d take you as soon as my lunch break started, every day when the weather was good.”

She attempts a smile and the first tear spills. “You always wanted to ride on the white horse. Only the white horse. If another kid was sitting there already you’d wait by the platform in silence, without ever taking your eyes away from it.”

He can see it.

The spinning platform. The carousel, immense in his four years old eyes, and the white horse without pupils, chipped wood and faded colours moving in circles that never end. He can feel his hand, his small, four year old hand wrapped tightly around his grand-tante’s.

_“You don’t want to sit in the carriage, Koushi? It’s empty now.”_

_“No, tata. I’ll wait for the horse.”_

“You were such a sweet kid,” Mrs. Devaux is saying in the present time.

Their hands are joined, today like they were then, but now his are bigger. They close easily around hers, enveloping them completely.  “Really?”

“Of course. People would always stop me on the streets to get a better look at you and you would cock your head to the side and smile until they were gone. You always smiled at everyone.”

She squeezes his fingers tight. “The clochard that slept in the park near our house used to call you fairy child. ‘The little fairy child come out of a jasmine flower’.”

Suga swallows down his feelings. “That’s nice.” He doesn’t remember that. Nothing, nothing at all that won’t come from his dreams.

A hand touches his cheek, tender the way only his family, only Daichi are ever with him. “And now look at you, you’ve grown so _beautiful_...”

“If only Cece could see you...she would be so proud...”

She thumbs at his hair, pure argent, his ‘old man hair’ as his old classmates would call it, and then just as fast she moves away, afraid she did too much, afraid she hoped for too much.

Suga blinks away his daze and stops her. He pins her down with his eyes and takes in the lines on her face, old and new, the difference twenty years make. “I can’t know that,” he says.

He can look at all the pictures he wants to understand the love she – they – had for him, but he will never know her. He will never know for sure whether or not she’d be proud of all the things he’s done, he will never know how she would have taken him being who he is.

She will never get to tell him.

“I lost her. We both did.”

Celeste had been about to argue before – “trust me, Koushi, I know she would be proud” – but now she keeps quiet, only nods and blinks a tear away.

There is a faint smell of daisies in the air.

Suga breathes it in, and continues. “We lost my mother.”

“Not...not in the same way of course. With her there is still a chance that...that she might come back.”

“But even if she did, it’s never going to be the same.”

He will never have a mother. He will never know his grand-maman. He will never recover what was captured in those photos and that got lost, so easily when that plane brought them here.

He sits straight on his stool and he has nothing but regrets for a moment. He hates it.

_“You should forgive her”_. Daichi’s voice in his ear.

She’s family.

You should forgive her.

That’s why he came here tonight. He came here to check a regret off his list, before it gets so heavy on him it turns him to unmovable stone.

Suga looks around the shop, to roses and peonies, plants of ivy and bouquets of gerbera. The daisies are nowhere to be found.

He takes a deep breath and meets her eyes instead. Bright, comforting. Familiar, like the rest of her is. He gives voice to the only emotion that still matters. “I don’t want to lose you too.”

In a moment she’s holding him, warm, impossibly tight. Like his father does, but clinging to him with a relief he’s never witnessed. Tears wet the fabric of his shirt, his shoulder.

He closes his eyes and holds her back, not as tight but hopefully no less comforting. He waits for her to recompose herself then he leans back, enough to meet her eyes once more. “Promise me you’ll never lie to me again.”

He hates asking for promises, he hates being forced in ones he can’t know he’ll keep but he needs this one. He needs this certainty to build something worthy, solid, with roots that run deep into the ground. Deeper than his worry.

Mrs. Devaux dries her eyes. “Je promets,” she tells him.

And Suga believes her. He does.

“Mon rayon de lune...”

He leans into her palm when she reaches out to caress his cheek and finally his heart settles into a regular stride.

_So this is what it’s like..._

The way his great-aunt touches him.

Her hands are smoother than his nana’s, her touch a lot more tentative. Different from anything he’s known these past twenty years. Something familiar, but so remote it feels completely new.

“You can’t know for how long I’ve wished...”

“I do. I do know, tata.”

They both smile.

“I am...I’m graduating in a few days,” he says in between minutes of shared silence, “I would really like it if you could come.”

He hands her a piece of paper, address, date, hour, and she holds it to her chest as if laminated in gold. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“My dear. My sweet Koushi.”

And just as well Suga knows she won’t. The first day of school, the match that secured his team a spot at Nationals. The day he got his bachelor’s degree, the joy that followed the letter of acceptance from Meiji. She missed everything, every moment in the past twenty years that has turned Koushi into who he is today.

She is not going to miss anything else.

“I promise, Koushi. I promise.”

And the pictures inked in every inch of his brain begin all to make that much more sense.

 

The night finds him in Daichi’s arms.

After finishing the story of Kana and Hiroshi Ayame stops him with a hand on his arm and barefoot on the trail of pebbles that give to the front gate she asks him to stay. “Just for tonight,” are the words she whispers, and her eyes are bright for the kiss she just caught.

Suga asks her if she’s sure and she laughs and drags him sleepily inside.

It’s the first time he and Daichi share a bed with their children only a few doors away. The first time since they made clear who they are to each other.

That night Suga rests his cheek on Daichi’s chest and falls asleep to the quiet beating of their hearts, lulled by Daichi’s breath breaking softly on his skin. For the hours that take the sun to rise he dreams, peaceful, of a future that is not scary anymore, not the way it used to be. Except...

Except for one detail. One happening that still has to take place.

 

 

The days that follow pass torturously slow.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Endless as the hours crawl by, one after the other. Too short when the sun goes down and Suga is forced to cross another number off the calendar.

A new week starts. Monday, Tuesday. Closer and closer to his graduation day.

Suga wants to throw up.

Anxiety starts to build up once again, twice as crippling after weeks spent worrying about anything else. It ripples with the oppressive quiet of his apartment and every ticking of the clock makes it rise, more and more, until it hits, leaving Suga staggering and gasping for breath. In those moments of panic all he can do to assuage the beast panting heavily on his neck is stand and grab the first textbook he finds within reach

His eyes scan wizened, yellowing pages and for every notion he’s sure he knows he second-guesses another dozen. He checks and re-checks, but nothing ever seems to stick.

Still, still he knows that if he lets the textbook go he’ll lose the one certainty he has. If he wastes time doing anything else other than studying he’ll fail to memorize this one obscure definition that the commission will single out as the additional question to ask.

What Daichi and the kids helped set in place for the next week or so stays the only improvement Suga has done so far to render the apartment more liveable.

Most of his winter clothes are still in the boxes lying around the bedroom floor. His father’s carvings are still in bubble wrap, collected in a chaotic jumble on the few free shelves left on the bookcases. He still has no couch, nor a bed.

And that, the small chaos that surrounds him oppresses him even more.

The only – brief – moments of respite he gets are those that follow the chirping of his phone. The kids text him regularly from the beach house Yurika-san rented just outside of the city, and with every picture Suga saves, every information he stores, read in Ayame’s blunt, overly loud voice, he feels more and more like smiling.

To tell the whole truth though, he’s mostly glad Ayame and Kaede don’t have to see him in the state he’s in.

‘dede found a pink seashell today! we thought it was a crab but nope! love you!’

‘i am getting even more freckles, suga-san!! i don’t know if i like it...love you!’

‘mom doesn’t tell stories like you do suga-san. it’s four days and i miss you like crazy. dede too.’

‘we got you a present suga-san. i know you’ll say we didn’t have to blab la bla but it’s done now so. we hope you like it! i miss you so much <3’

“Is that Ayame?”

Suga nods and lifts the phone so Daichi too can read the text. Warm, calloused hands rest on his shoulders and the lingering touch of fingers along the curve of his neck is enough to draw out a sigh from Suga’s parted lips.

Daichi comes by every day. In the morning to drop off the food Sachiko-san made specifically for Suga, in the late afternoon to make sure Suga doesn’t overwork himself. They see each other every day but still...it’s been almost a week since he and Daichi last touched that way. Five days – but really, who’s counting? – and the stress that’s been building up inside of him makes Suga’s skin tingle with the need for a release.

Daichi’s thumb presses on a knot in his back. His breath hitches in a shallow moan.“Daichi...”

Five days and, oh how he’s missed this.

Suga calls his name again and it’s meant to be a reproach as much as an encouragement. He closes his eyes to the clock, ticking six pm and never fucking stopping and fuck, Suga knows he should be studying, he knows that but...

Daichi leans in and presses his chest flush on Suga’s back.

When his hand trails down, past the curve of Suga’s stomach, past the dip of his navel and down, down still Suga searches blindly for his mouth.

Not once does he try to stop him. For a while the rustling of clothes, the sounds that spill from Suga’s lips manage to cover the passing of time.

 

“You’re bad for my academic career.”

Daichi chooses not to answer the provocation spoken between laboured pants.

In the wake of their post-orgasm  high they hold each other tight. Even though the hot, humid hair of August seeps into bones heavy like lead they burrow themselves in the body pressed close to their own and share the calm.

“You are still so tense...” Daichi whispers in the crook of his jaw and his fingers dance on Suga’s spine, stopping on each knob, caressing every inch of his bare skin.

“I don’t know, I think you did a pretty good job helping me relax just now.”

Suga straddles Daichi’s waist and lets their lips meet once more. Lazy, with no rush. Their tongues brush against each other and they sigh together, sharing the same air. Daichi’s teeth graze his bottom lip and Suga closes his fingers around the fabric of his shirt, now only an invitation for him to do it once more.

“Daichi...”

He just came, breathless from the touch of Daichi’s hand, and yet he still needs him. Not another orgasm, not the feeling of them, joined as one inside of him. No, he just needs...this. Daichi, this closeness.

More than that, he wants it.

He’s needed others before, to hold him at night, fuck the anxious stream of thoughts out of his brain, but once that need was fulfilled he was ok with them leaving, just as he would have been with them staying. This is not something he needs.

He’s steady on his feet now, his thoughts don’t scare him as much as they used to. He doesn’t need Daichi to stay by his side, the way he needs oxygen to live, but he wants him. He wants him close.

Because his life would go on without him, but it wouldn’t be nearly as good.

Suga moves away from the kiss, slowly, he presses a peck on the bridge of Daichi’s nose and for a while he just stares.

Daichi’s eyes are dark. They move from Suga’s own to his lips, relentless, waiting for another kiss, they absorb the light of the neons but they reflect that which catches Suga’s. The pupils are blown wide. Suga pauses to nip at sharp cheekbones, then he looks some more.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.”

Hands move from his back to his hips, to palm at the curve of them. “Come on, tell me.”

Suga laughs at the annoyance seeping through Daichi’s voice. “You’re cute,” is all he says and it gets him a huff and an impatient pinch on the ass. “Ouch!”

“That’s what you get for lying to me.”

Suga leans down again. “You’re right I’m sorry. I should have said that you’re hideous instead.”

The pinch becomes a slap and as he breaks into laughter once more his hair falls free from the hold of the tie. Strands tickle Daichi’s cheeks and Suga huffs in annoyance.

He looks around for the lousy hair tie, apparently too tiny and weak to contain the shapeless mass of waves and loose curls that has now become his hair. “Stupid piece of elastic fabric.”

Daichi chuckles deep in his chest and stops him with a hand on his wrist when Suga tries to collect his hair in a tighter ponytail. “No, leave it like this.”

He brushes away the locks that still caress his skin and feels them between his thumb and forefinger. In the light they are almost white. “When did it get so long?” he asks, but the way he does, almost breathless, suggests he doesn’t expect or want an answer.

He probably isn’t even aware he spoke out loud.

Suga rests on his chest and watches him play with the curling tips of his bangs. The same way his – their - children do. “From your behaviour I gather you don’t want me to cut it.”

Daichi throws him an affronted look. “I thought you wanted to grow it long!”

“I do but when my father comes down in a couple of days you’ll have to help me defend my choice with him.”

Daichi hesitates for a moment. The idea of going against Suga’s father is not something that appeals to him, especially because this will be the first time they meet since he and Suga got together. But then the light coming through the windows changes, colouring Suga’s hair a bright silver, and at once he makes up his mind. “Alright. Whatever you need, I’ll say it.”

And then, quieter, “You look too beautiful like this...”

Suga’s heart skips a beat, and so close Daichi feels it too. He smiles at Suga’s reddening cheeks. “Don’t get embarrassed for so little!”

As if that compliment were the only reason to push Suga to hide his eyes. “Shut up, you jerk.”

I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you.

He almost says it, but to explain the meaning of his words it would take too long. His alarm clock rings, back on the nightstand in his bedroom and he flinches, as if before a harsh blow. Indeed he has no more time to give to anything else.

“Fuck.”

He tries to stand, away from the enticing heat that Daichi’s body emanates, but warm, strong arms stop him, wrapping themselves around his waist. “Daichi! Daichi, I need to study.”

“Fuck, it’s already seven.”

Nerves stir his stomach into a constant quiver and his chest tightens at the sounds of the clock. Daichi’s presence had blocked them all away, somewhere Suga couldn’t hear them but now the seconds seem to run faster than ever and he needs to study, he needs to study, he needs to study...

“Suga.”

Daichi sits up with him and his hold on him only tightens. “Suga, you’ve studied enough for today.”

“No I have to revise chapter 7-”

“Chapter 7 can wait.”

Daichi’s voice turns gentler, and with it his hands, his lips on the shell of Suga’s ear. “You’re exhausted, I can see it.”

Suga closes his eyes. Of course he is, he’s exhausted, mentally and physically, but while he understands, he knows that he should rest he’s sure he won’t feel at ease until he has a book in his hands again. “I only have three days...”

“You could have three hours, Sug, and you’d still be ready.”

They stand up together but Suga makes no move to walk away, to the pile of textbooks waiting on his kitchen table.

Daichi continues. “Fukunaga-san said so too. You’re ready, your thesis is solid and beautifully written and you’re ready. Arriving completely spent to the examination would do you no good, my...um. Suga.”

Suga sighs and leans back on Daichi’s chest. Somehow this is exactly what he needed to hear.

There is logic in Daichi’s words. If he arrives to graduation day as exhausted as he feels right now he will not be quick to answer the examiners’ questions or adapt to changes in his exposition, he will fail to convey how much he cares about the subject of his researches.

He sighs again and turns in Daichi’s hold, for a hug he desperately needs. “You’re right.”

Daichi doesn’t answer, just presses a kiss on his hair.

“Thank you.”

“Let’s get you out of here.” And before Suga’s anxiety can build up again he takes his hand in both his own. “Just for a walk around the block, ok? You need to breathe some fresh air. Hey, maybe we could go visit Miss Tina.”

Suga nods and the pleased grin Daichi gives him is all it takes for him to find his smile again. He’s the one to lead them outside.

They are already down in the streets when Daichi stops him with a hand on his wrist.

“What is it?”

“What were you thinking about before? Really?”

“When I told you you were cute?”

“Yeah.”

The streetlights are turning Daichi’s skin gold. He looks into Suga’s eyes, searching for an answer he doesn’t really expect.

Suga decides to give it to him. “I was thinking about how much I love you.”

It’s not precise but it’s the fundamental truth. Daichi starts before it and blushes to the root of his hair with a pleasure he can’t really hide.

They walk to the crossroad hand in hand, without saying anything more.

 

At one point they get lost. After the crossroad and past the contemporary art museum they miss a clue and find themselves in a street Suga has never seen before.

“Where the hell...”

“What is it with you getting me lost in the most obscure parts of the city?”

“Hey, you are here too, aren’t you Sug? You got me lost just as much as I did you!”

“Yeah but you’ve been living here for so much longer than me...”

“If that’s another ‘you’re old’ joke I swear...”

The threat is cut short by Suga nearly tripping over a badly placed pebble.

They look around, to the wrought iron of the balconies and the sparse, dark shop windows but they find no clue as to where they are. Cutting through two buildings is a narrow, badly lit alley that seems to give north.

Daichi tells Suga to keep this road while he goes to see where that one takes and Suga watches him go with a strange, nagging sensation in the back of his mind.

He keeps walking, down where the street gives way to a much larger road but just as he’s about to turn around and wait for Daichi to come back he spots a sign, right above his head, in blue and gold and neon grey.

The outline of a volleyball.

Suga stops and reads the kanjis with a growing smile on his face. Tokyo Neighbourhood Association.

He calls Daichi’s name, only to find him just a few steps away. “That street gives to the main road,” Daichi is saying, “I think that’s the right way.”

Suga shakes his head and points to the sign for him. “No, Dai. This is.”

And without further hesitations he opens the door and steps inside.

A familiar dog greets him, sitting quietly in a corner of the gym it springs to its feet as soon as it catches sight of the newcomers. A mass of thick, curly brown hair is all Suga registers before he finds himself with his back on the floor.

The name comes to him immediately. “Daisy!”

“Daisy! Down, girl!”

This voice too is familiar even though Suga only heard it once before.

The dog is pulled back and away from him and two pairs of hands reach out to help him up. Suga takes them both.

“I’m so sorry about her, she just gets so excited around strangers...” the guy is stammering, a mile per minute in the most adorable of ways. Suga tugs at his hand to get him to raise his eyes and when he does the man falls quiet with a startled ‘oh’.

Suga smiles. It really is him. Those kind, downturned eyes are unmistakeable, as is that beard, the long, brown hair collected in a loose ponytail. It’s the guy he and Taka ran into near the park, some two weeks ago.

What a small world.

Beard-san appears to remember him too. “You’re the guy...with the friend...” he starts to say something but all of a sudden he falls quiet once more. His cheeks are reddening though, and that much tells Suga everything he needed to know.

He still thinks about Taka. He recalled Taka’s face and it was enough to make him blush like a schoolgirl.

Suga bites the inside of his cheek before his smile can turn into a smirk. Next to him Daichi clears his throat. He looks lost, mildly annoyed. His eyes take in Beard-san’s appearance and something in the way he cocks his eyebrow shows he’s both impressed by what he sees – the sheer size of the man is indeed very impressive – and irritated by the attitude.

“Do you two know each other?” he asks, almost brusque and he looks even more confused when they both shake their heads.

“No we just ran into each other once some weeks ago.”

“Daisy ran into him,” Beard-san corrects him and before Suga’s delighted grin he clears his throat and adds in a less engaging tone “I’m sorry again, she got your shirt all dirty.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine.”

Suga reaches out to shake his hand. Anything to make the guy relax and crack another careless joke. “I’m Sugawara Koushi.”

The hand that closes around his is impossibly warm and a little sweaty, but its grip is surprisingly firm. Comforting, Suga’s brain supplies but it makes no sense, such a word spoken about a guy he doesn’t know at all.

“Azumane. Asahi Azumane.”

“Like Bond. James Bond.”

And again the teasing this man seems to naturally inspire in him, this too makes no sense.

Azumane-san blushes to the tips of his ears but thankfully he doesn’t seem offended, nor particularly startled by the familiarity with which Suga is speaking to him.

He turns to Daichi, who is still studying him with blatant wariness. “Azumane Asahi,” he repeats and he almost sighs in relief when Daichi takes his hand to shake.

“Sawamura Daichi, nice to meet you.”

Suga watches them as they turn to stare at him again, side by side and tentative. The sight pulls at his heartstrings, as if finally one more thing has fallen into place. He can’t explain. Still he grins. “Daichi and I used to play volleyball in high school,” he says, “we’d like to train with you, if it’s possible.”

It’s out before he can think about it. Daichi’s eyes widen but before Suga’s smile – or simply in Azumane’s presence – he chooses not to argue.

Azumane lights up. “Really? That’d be...I mean, we’re, we’re always looking for new members so if- if you want. Of course you can, um, you can try it out, see if you like the team...”

Suga lets him ramble for a while and follows him quietly in the gym.

The smell of rubber and Salonpas hits him all at once, so strong he has to take a step back and recollect his thoughts once more. Memories flood his brain, memories of victory, of his biggest disappointments.

Tears spilled on a court that looked exactly like this one. Clinging to the holes of the net when he needed to catch his breath. Nationals, matches he only watched from the cold of the bench. And again that last time in the gym at Meiji, when he’d pressed his forehead on an empty court and said goodbye for the first time.

He turns to look at Daichi and finds the same emotion reflected in his eyes.

A volleyball rolls to his feet and Suga takes it, spins it in his hands, weighs it in his palms. It feels exactly the same, perfect, like a natural extension of his body.

Azumane is staring at him with a knowing, impossibly kind expression in his eyes. “What position did you play in, Sugawara-san?”

Suga makes the ball bounce to the ground, once, twice. The noise it makes, that too is exactly the same. He stops. “Setter,” he says.

He sends the ball flying above his head, then hits it with calibrated strength. Past the net it lands exactly on the center line, in the conflict zone between first and second row.

“I’m a setter.”

Azumane invites them to practice with him and his friend Kai and for the next few hours Suga forgets everything. The thesis, graduation, chapter seven, all disappears except for the feeling of the ball scraping his fingertips.

 

His hands still hurt a day later. After two it’s a tingling whenever he turns the pages of yet another textbook. Three days and he’s aching with the need to toss to Daichi and Azumane again.

On the fourth day he’s given a stroll of paper to hold above his head in triumph, and the elation is as powerful as that any trophy has ever stirred within him.

Although this, this is much lighter.

 

“It is my pleasure to declare you all professors of Translation and Interpreting Studies. Congratulations!”

Suga is pulled in for a hug by a guy he barely knows then he walks around to congratulate the few people who defended their thesis with him. Three girls and two other guys. A small group, but their families filled up every seat in the room.

Speaking of which...

“Suga-san!”

The pitter-patter of quick feet on marble floors and suddenly Suga’s breath is cut short in his lungs by two pairs of arms squeezing his waist tight. He looks down, into wide, laughing eyes and smiles at the stream of words leaving both Ayame and Kaede’s lips.

“You were amazing, Suga-san!”

“You sounded so smart, I wasn’t surprised at all when that professor singled you out, you were the best. I told Dede too, I said ‘they better give Suga-san a shout-out because he was ah-mazing’ like seriously, Suga-san, you were incredible. And not boring at all!”

“Daddy was mouthing parts of your speech with you, it was so funny!”

“Yeah! As if dad understands anything about this stuff!”

“Hey, I heard that!”

Suga raises his eyes and finds everybody waiting for him, smiling at him with their arms wide open. His family, reunited just outside the lecture hall.

He looks at them all for a moment and laughter bubbles deep inside his chest, relief and joy turn his bones to feathers. He takes the kids by the hand and with a nod they run together to the small crowd.

His father is the first to reach him. In the chaos of congratulations and whistles and rounds of applause he takes Koushi in his arms and holds him tight against his chest. “I’m so proud of you,” he chants on his temple, “so proud.”

He cups Koushi’s face in his calloused palms and repeats it again, over and over as they look into each other’s eyes. “You were incredible. I’m so proud of you.”

His are brimming with tears. Suga hugs him back and whispers in his ear “It was all thanks to you, dad.”

All thanks to him. If Suga was able to attend one of the most prestigious universities in the country, if he managed to do so without once having to worry about finding himself in the streets one day...it was all only because he had his father at his back, ready to catch him if he were ever about to fall. Without once judging him, condemning him or questioning the choices Suga had done, his father had given him everything, everything that took him to get this far.

And some might say this kind of support, the unconditional love his father has shown him, always, every day throughout his life is the bare minimum a parent should do for their child. But Suga knows the other side of the coin, he’s seen it, he’s lived through it and no, his father’s love is not something he will ever take for granted.

“Thank you, dad.”

His father shakes his head. “No, this was all you, Koushi,” he says, and his voice trembles with the emotion spilling from his eyes.

Koushi smiles at the kiss pressed on his forehead and without another word he gives him the parchment closed in a red, satin ribbon. His Master’s degree certificate.

It’s as much his as it is Suga’s. Whether his father agrees with it or not, Suga knows it to be true.

A hand tugs at their jackets with force and another dear voice fills the air around them. “For goodness’ sake Tsuneo, stop hogging my boy’s attention!”

And then Suga is kneeling on the ground to accept every kiss his nana intends to give him.

 

From every side come hugs and congratulations, and more bouquets of flowers than Suga can hold in his arms. His cheeks start to ache with his smile but he’s too damn happy to care even a bit.

Hajime and Tooru wave bottles of champagne around and the way they are pressed close, touching from shoulder to hip, doesn’t go unnoticed. Suga has to hide a smirk behind the bouquet of tulips Taka bought him and above the same flowers he meets his friend’s eyes for a conspiratorial wink.

“Iwaizumi-san dropped by last night,” Taka tells him as they move in for another hug, “they talked, yelled a bit. He didn’t stay the night, but this morning Oikawa-san was whistling.”

When it’s his turn Tooru is so enthusiastic in his effusions he lifts Suga up. “You were perfect out there, Kou-chan. Not that I ever doubted you would be, but you over-exceeded even my expectations!”

Suga laughs in the crook of his neck. “Thank you Tooru.”

But in a very familiar scene Tooru shakes his head and with a calmness that had long been missing he tells him “No, Kou-chan. Thank you.”

They share a kiss, chaste and brief. It tastes of early summer days, when all you can see ahead of your path are more sunny days to follow.

By his side Hajime’s eyes are bright.

It’s not all solved between them, in the way they are standing, still so close, in the way they hold themselves together there is a tension that lingers and that won’t fade after a single talk. But there is the will to work on it, on their relationship, on them, and it’s comforting.

It’s what Tooru had wanted from the very beginning. It’s another chance.

 

Outside the Humanistic Studies building the day is lovely. Throughout the entire morning Suga’s agitation had become so crippling the entire train ride here is but a film of blurry lines in his mind, but now that he’s free, finally free of his self-doubt Suga looks around himself and enjoys the sight of the park bathed in sunlight.

Green and yellow grass unmoving in the stale air of August, the sparse trees outstretched toward the bluest sky. A lot of students have brought beach towels with them and are sunbathing with their noses still in books.

The people that graduated with Suga are all scattered around the area, taking pictures and laughing and chugging champagne. Suga is just about to uncork the first bottle of his stash when paced steps reach his ears, only warning he gets before Fukunaga-san appears in his line of sight.

And not just him, no, for he’s followed by Akagi-san as well.

Fukunaga-san hugs him. It shocks Suga only for the time of a blink, then he’s smiling and pointing him to his father, who immediately walks toward them to shake Fukunaga-san’s hand.

“Koushi has told me so much about you.”

“Good things, I hope.”

“Mostly good, yes, but it really depended on how hard you made him work, sir.”

They laugh together and not for the first time it strikes Suga how similar they are. Might be one of the reasons why he always got along so well with Fukunaga-san.

The man in question claps Suga on the shoulder and still with a hint of displeasure he tells him “Well, I’m glad to hear it. For my part I can only say good things about your son, Sugawara-san.”

Then, lighter “Too bad this man had no qualms about stealing him from me,” and he points to Akagi-san, prompting another series of introductions.

They don’t stay long, just the time for the first toast of the day.

“To Suga!”

“To Koushi, big ol’ overachiever who accomplished everything he set his mind to.”

“Of course he did! To Suga-san!”

Akagi-san shakes his hand in a brief moment of silence. With his charming ways of worldly businessman and old-fashioned man he is at his very core he keeps him briefly, not to ‘interrupt your well-earned celebrations’, but he congratulates him with warm honesty and a satisfied air about him that speaks of no regrets.

“Your exposition was excellent, Sugawara-kun, and your thesis of high value. I was already very impressed with the bits Fukunaga sent me but the way you presented your research really heightened its quality. A job very well done.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Before he and Fukunaga-san leave he smiles and claps his shoulder, the same way Fukunaga-san just did only a few minutes before. “Enjoy the next two weeks, Sugawara-kun. Once you start working with us, I intend to take full advantage of your capabilities.”

Suga straightens his spine, and even as his eyes crinkle with pleasure he intones “I look forward to it.”

And he does. He can hardly wait.

 

“For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow, and so say all of us! And so say all of us, and so say all of us!”

Tooru takes the second bottle of champagne and under Suga’s horrified stare he starts to shake it. White foam gathers up the neck and when he uncorks it Suga barely has the time to close his eyes that a spray of champagne hits him right in the chest.

Wet and alcohol soak his shirt in two seconds flat. From his chin fall more drops, they sneak underneath the collar of his shirt, cold, freezing, and he shivers. His merry company of jerks is cheering and laughing but when he opens his eyes again Suga sees Tooru has already gone hiding behind Taka’s frame.

He marches toward him. He roars above the cheers a simple, easy question: “Why?”

“I had to Kou-chan! It’s not a real celebration if you’re not at least a little wet!”

A guy passing by snorts and yells “That’s what she said!” causing another round of laughter to erupt. Despite himself Suga joins, the taste of champagne on his lips bitter and dizzying.

Ayame tugs on his and Daichi’s hands. “What is that supposed to mean?” she asks and Daichi nearly chokes on his own hilarity.

A look of pure horror crosses his face.

Suga rolls his eyes at him and pats Ayame’s hand fondly. “It’s just an old Italian saying, Aya-chan. Wet bride, lucky bride. The Italians use it not to make newlyweds feel bad if it happens to rain on their wedding day.”

Ayame cocks her head. For a moment she doesn’t look all that convinced but before Suga’s reassuring smile she gives a helpless shrug and declares, with her usual conviction “I don’t really get it but it’s nice. People shouldn’t feel bad on their wedding day because of a little stupid rain.”

“You’re absolutely right, my love.”

Tooru calls her to him to ask if she wants to try a sip of champagne and alone now in the narrow space of the circle Daichi wraps an arm around his waist. “How do you always have an answer to everything,” he asks, he wonders out loud.

His eyes are soft and Suga has no answers for him. Nothing but an awkward shrug of his shoulders. “It, um, it was just a thing that...”

Daichi smiles and presses an impalpable kiss on his lips. That soon lingers to become a caress.

His thumb digs in the flesh of his hip. Suga’s quick wit was only an excuse to grasp a moment for themselves, in the small crowd that surrounds them they haven’t had way to even touch.

Suga turns in to Daichi and closes his eyes. He keeps his hand chaste on Daichi’s chest, trembling as it is now, and he parts his lips for him.

The caress becomes exploring, gentle the way only Daichi can be. Suga takes a step closer and...

Someone whistles around them. Someone, as in Tooru. Only he can be that obnoxious.

Daichi moves away fast and Suga is left adrift, to glare once more at the person he still calls his best friend. “Tooru, I swear...”

“Should I remind you, Sugawara, that there are children here?”

Ayame butts in to argue she’s not a child anymore. Kaede, earnest as he is to say what he needs, forgets his shyness for a second and regards Tooru with a piercing look. “I like that daddy and Suga-san kiss.”

“Daddy gets all dreamy and happy when he kisses Suga-san, he forgets to scold us sometimes!”

“I do not-” Daichi turns red all the way down his neck and as the people all around them laugh he blushes even harder.

Worse than that, when he looks for support from his boyfriend he finds Suga pressing a hand hard on his mouth, not to burst out laughing too. “Oh Dai, I’m sorry but that’s so cute...”

Suga means lovely. He means wonderful, he means perfect. That he has that effect on Daichi, it warms his heart. He wants to tell him so but this, more than a kiss, is something meant only for the privacy of their aloneness.

Solo cups make their way around again for another toast and as Tooru pronounces a new speech Suga meets his father’s eyes. They are soft, shifting from his face to his fingers, loosely intertwined with Daichi’s.

Suga cocks an eyebrow, in a silent question only he can catch, and dad smiles. Tender, and a little mournful, he raises his cup to him.

 

Sachiko-san calls his name as they are all sitting around the shadow of a beautiful peach tree.

She places a hand on the crook of his elbow and with the excuse of helping him gather the bouquets in shopping bags she takes him away from the rest of the company for a moment.

“You were wonderful, Koushi-kun,” she tells him with a handful of tulips. “So confident, even a person as ignorant on the subject as I am could tell. You explained everything beautifully.”

Suga smiles at her, “thank you”, and shows her his wrist. The bracelet she had given him on his birthday. “I like to think I had some help with that.”

In surprise she remains speechless for a long while. She regards him with open fondness, in a way that’s almost maternal – but after all, what does Suga know about that? – and at last she reaches out to stroke his cheek. “You sweet, sweet boy,” she murmurs, then with an embarrassed laugh she lets him go.

“You never had me wondering why Daichi fell so in love with you.”

Now it’s Suga’s turn to run out of words to say. His heart becomes heavy with the next beats but as much as he tries to come up with an answer that weight forces him calm. He nods through his embarrassment, in thanks mostly, and with his bangs covering his reddening cheeks he fits another bouquet in the bag.

Sachiko-san takes them both in her arms when they are finally full. “Let me-” and she moves away as he tries to take one for himself.

“But Sachiko-san...”

“Koushi-kun, look to your left.”

Without questioning anything at all Suga does and once again in his chest the beat changes, to something fast, unruly. Without an order.

Mrs. Devaux is there, leaning heavily on a young chestnut tree, only a few meters away from them.

Sachiko-san keeps talking. “She’s been standing there for a while and I didn’t know...I don’t know what happened between you two but seeing her all alone like that, I felt bad for her...”

Suga nods and gives her a smile. His body is thrumming with nerves, out of his control. He bows to Sachiko-san and in a few dozen steps he’s there, before his grand-tante.

“I thought you’d gone...”

He’d seen her in the hall, in a seat far away from the rest of the family. She had been the first to arrive. But when the results had come and the crowd had closed around him he’d lost sight of her. “I thought you’d left.”

Mrs. Devaux shakes her head and her hair catches the light of the sun, the same way his own does. “No, no I couldn’t...”

She takes in a shallow breath and her gaze travels to the company for a second, before resting once more on his face. “I wasn’t sure if...if I would be welcome there. Tsuneo and, and your grandmother, they might not want to see me.”

“I didn’t want to cause drama on your special day.”

Suga watches her fidget with a handkerchief. Past her nerves she looks better, more rested than she had days before. A wrap of cotton and nacre circlets rests artfully around her shoulders, sparkling in the shades of the ocean in summer. She looks herself.

He closes his hands around hers. “My father knows that you’re here,” he says, “and nana...well, for my sake she will accept it. So please, come join us. For me.”

“I didn’t invite you to be a figure in the background.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m sure.”

Her hands come to cup his jaw and she kisses both his cheeks, twice. “Mon rayon de lune. Thank you.”

She is shaking next to him. The few tears that have spilled are covered behind the bouquet she hands to him. Daisies.

“I know in these occasions you are supposed to give red flowers but I thought...”

“I love them.”

Suga brings them to his face. His mind fills only with his grand-maman’s smile. “They were her favourites, weren’t they?”

And finally Mrs. Devaux smiles, on her cheek a tear she doesn’t brush away. “Yes.”

They walk slowly to everyone else and as soon as his father catches sight of them he springs to his feet. “Celeste...”

Instinctively she tightens her hold on Suga’s arm. “Tsuneo, I...”

But his father shakes his head and without a moment more of hesitation he reaches out to take her hand. “It’s good to see you again.”

In front of everyone Suga wraps his arm around her shoulder and introduces her to those who still don’t know her. “This is my great-aunt, Celeste.”

Through bafflement and confusion, and his nana’s hesitation, it takes a moment but in the end a place is found for her too in the small crowd of his family.

That he was born into and that which he chose himself.

 

“In the eve I love to see the waving willows, they stretch their hands to me strolling alone.”

“Then one night I open the door and there she is, that fluffy, evil creature holding a half dead rat in her jaws...”

“Ew!”

“Oh, see the hazy moon rising over the banks, rows of cherry trees standing over the stream.”

“Tooru, don’t scare Ayame like that!”

“How I love the cherry blossoms in the moonlight!”

“But it’s the truth, Kou-chan!”

Suga ignores him to join Kaede for the last line of the song. “How can I describe for you the night like in a dream?”

His father and Daichi, sitting closest to them both, cheer and clap at their harmonies. Suga accepts the compliments with a bow of his head, but Kaede only smiles to his feet and continues to weave the stems of flowers he and Ayame collected on their way here.

“What are you doing here, love?”

Kaede shifts to rest between his legs, his tiny back on Suga’s chest and looks up at him with wide, luminous eyes. “It’s a flower crown. Aya taught me to make it!”

Suga closes his arms around him. “Can I help?”

He’s already reaching out for more flowers but Kaede shakes his head, in a way that won’t accept further arguments. “You can’t help, no. This is for you.”

“For me?”

“Uh-uh.”

With his nose in his baby’s hair Suga holds him tighter. “Ok then, I’ll just watch you,” he says and presses a kiss on Kaede’s temple.

The click of a camera goes off but Suga ignores it, except for a smile he throws Daichi’s way. Him and his old-fashioned Polaroid.

Kaede waves his sister over for help and she sits by Suga’s side. “Can you sing some more, Suga-san?”

To the endless stream of chatter around him Suga hums  a song only for them. “Kites are rising in the sky, catching fair winds far up high...”

 

Three more songs and the sun has reached the highest spot in this endless sky.

The crown of wildflowers – baby blue eyes and barren strawberry, beautiful cornflowers and purple anagallis - is laid on his head to more and more cheers and he smiles to the brightness that surrounds them.

“Suga-san, you look so pretty!”

“Indeed, you’re ready to go to a casting call for the next Disney movie.”

“Are you jealous, Asskawa?”

Gentle fingers graze his temple, unexpected. Daichi starts as he meets his eyes but again he fidgets with the flower crown, without really moving it. “You, um. Just trying to fix it, that’s all.”

His forefinger brushes a lock of Suga’s hair away to fully uncover his eye, and still it stays to trace the laughter lines at its corner, follows the curve of his eyelashes.

In Suga’s arms the children laugh. “You are blushing, daddy!”

“Jeez, dad, just tell him he looks nice...”

Daichi sputters but he still doesn’t move away. Before his embarrassment Suga laughs too and just as it all happens the click of the camera goes off again.

Suga looks around to see who has it now, Tooru of course, smirking down at him as if he knows more than Suga can comprehend. Behind him though...

Suga blinks to the sunrays catching his eyes. For a moment he thought...- silver hair, exactly like his own, worn short in a pixie cut. A white dress with a print of blue flowers. But no, no that’s not possible.

He looks again behind Tooru’s shoulders and he finds no one. Of course.

He was mistaken. A trick of the light, that was, a trick of the light and nothing more.

Daichi’s thumb shifts, to trace the mole under his eye and Suga turns toward him instead. He smiles at him, at the people who never left, and finally at those who never will again.

 

Rain clouds cover the moon. At ten p.m. Suga is already tired.

He toes off his shoes with a hand on the wall and leaves a trail of flowers in his wake, all the way down the kitchen and into the living room where he finally stops. His cheeks ache with all the smiles he’s given today. It’s nice.

Dad follows, with more flowers in his hands and the roll of parchment he never let go of.

“You need to frame this, Koushi,” he says, pressing it splayed on the wall. The ink glitters under the light, and so does Suga’s name, his accomplishment.

“I will. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow, yeah.”

His thesis, hardcover in blue and titled in gold, is placed alone on a shelf. The university intends to publish it and find it a spot in the school library, flattering for sure, but for how long he’s worked on all this it’s almost painful to think of it becoming public domain. His researches, his opinions, how many people are going to take a peek into his brain?

Maybe though, maybe that’s not what’s scary.

He laughs. The nervous quiver of his stomach is a tickle, it feels much like excitement.

His father comes to stand behind him and places a warm hand on his shoulder. As if he somehow sensed the places Suga’s thoughts were travelling to he tells him “You did good today, Koushi. You are doing good.”

“You think so?”

“I know so, it’s the truth.”

And Suga finds no reasons to argue. For once he doesn’t. “Thanks dad.”

A moment of hesitation and from the corner of his eye Suga sees his father swallow. The hand on his shoulder tightens. “Daichi-kun showed me your dedication. It was beautiful.”

(‘This is for my father. Everything I am I owe it all to you. I’m sure that as soon as you read this you are going to shake your head and deny every word but I need you to know, it’s nothing but the truth.’)

Had it been just a few months ago he would have left it there, they both would have, but now dad sighs and takes one more step to stand right next to him. “I’m sorry she wasn’t there,” he says, as his voice finally breaks.

“I know she would be proud but that, it...it doesn’t matter. She should have been there for you. Today, every day.”

“I know, dad. I’m sorry too.”

Suga places his hand on his father’s and they stay in silence for a long while.

He missed her today, Suga would lie if he said he didn’t. Celeste’s presence helped assuage the tear. The children’s laughter, Daichi’s touch, the cheers of the people he holds most dear, all helped him look past it.

(‘To my nana, who taught me the importance of that one sprinkle of salt when making the perfect cookie dough. To my friends, Tooru, Taka and Hajime, for accepting me for who I am, and enabling my weird fashion sense as my crazy waking hours.’)

It. The empty seat at the table.

(‘To Ayame and Kaede, my most precious treasures. And to Daichi. One day I’ll find the words to tell you just how much I’m thankful for you.’)

 He’d expected it, but it was still painful. For this the dedication alone had taken weeks to be complete. The final bit, he’d scribbled it at the bottom of the page, last minute, on the counter of the copy shop. ‘To Celeste, thank you for coming back.’

Then lastly, alone in a new paragraph: ‘And to the woman who couldn’t stay.’

Not to forget. Just because he lost her doesn’t mean she’s gone. She will never be and that’s...that’s ok.

That’s ok with him now.

He looks up to the pictures hanging on the wall and his eyes immediately meet her own. He smiles, at her, at himself, and from his breast pocket he takes out the pictures of today.

“Dad, could you get me those tacks?”

One by one they pin them all on the cork board, in the empty spaces found everywhere around her.

Suga smiling as the committee chairman praises his work. Hugging his father a few moments later with the certificate already crumbled in his hands. Tooru lifting him up in an embrace that’s too tight, and in the next Hajime and Taka running to join them for a staged victory pose, all squeezed close together to get in the picture.

Him and his nana, laughing with their foreheads pressed close together.

Another picture, of the children placing the flower crown on his head. The expression Suga wears on his face is a love he’d long resigned himself to never feel.

His children. Two words he’d resigned himself to never think.

Sometimes even he is wrong, who would have thought?

His father hands him another picture and it takes three tries before he manages to make it stick. His hands are shaking, but it’s not bad. He makes no move to hide it.

Tooru with his arms around Suga’s shoulder, soaking wet with the champagne Suga just dropped on his head. Another. Everybody smiling at the camera, huddled close to his nana and pointing to the parchment his father is hoisting above his head.

“This one is ridiculous,” he says and they both laugh as they scan everyone’s expressions.

Tooru has accidentally stepped on Hajime’s foot and is being mercilessly jabbed in the ribs in retaliation. Next to them is Ayame, yelling something neither of them can remember with her mouth wide open. Daichi has his eyes closed and Suga, Suga looks two seconds away from a yawn. “I was.”

Basically it’s a total mess.

It finds its place above every other, taller than the top line of the board. Next to it Suga pins the only picture of him and Celeste alone. He’s holding the bouquet of daisies to his face, while she’s busy fixing his shirt still with tears glimmering in her eyes.

Suga had never noticed before, they have the same nose.

His father says “I’m glad she came”, and he nods, says nothing else. Those words are enough.

_I’m glad too._

Those words are enough.

And even if they weren’t the last picture of the pile steals them all away.

It’s of him and Daichi, sitting in the grass in quiet calm. The kids are leaning on Suga’s chest and smiling at them, but neither of them notices. In the picture, in this moment Daichi is reaching out only for him. His fingers, to fix the crown of wildflowers, get caught in the tangles of Suga’s hair and for a second – in this second- he’s smiling. He’s smiling like...

Suga’s breath falters, breaks as soon as it reaches his lips.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know, kiddo.” His father’s voice resounds in his ear and Suga catches the edge of a grin just in time before it disappears.

“Dad, I...”

When he turns to Daichi again his expression hasn’t changed. Minutes pass and it never does.

Suga traces his features with a fingertip, with eyes that dance, and smiles one last time.

He takes in each detail and counts every picture. The people he has surrounded himself with.

And just like that he realizes his father’s right.

He is doing good.


	39. A piece of blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An end and a beginning.

The carousel is spinning. On and on it never stops.

Suga looks to the lights passing fast by and keeps still above it. With his arms outstretched he searches for balance, he breathes in the chilly air of December and lets himself be carried.

Around, not away.

On the steady ground there is Daichi waiting, smiling just for them, Suga has no intention of leaving him. He waves at him and Daichi waves back, but a moment and he’s already gone- around, not away – behind the curve the carousel takes.

In the background now only immense trees stand, evergreen against the grey of winter, and they hold the clouds above in their growing limbs.

The crackling of one branch and the sky could come falling down, cotton candy melting with the snow. That’d be fun, actually.

“Suga-san, what are you doing?”

Small hands tug on his fingers, warm through the cold. Ayame.

Suga closes the insignificant space that separates him from her. “Nothing, kiddo,” he says. “Just admiring the view.”

He helps her up on the horse with the ease that can only come from a dream and then he does the same for Kaede. Sightless, faded white paint on chipped wood, it’s the same horse he used to ride on. Another dream ago, another life ago.

Today though he’s here only to watch his children play. Grip steady on the bridles he takes place next to them, ready to catch them if they ever were to stumble.

Like Celeste used to do for him.

“So Chiyo told me there was no way I could receive one of the Nakano Queens’ spikes. It was nasty of her, I mean I know I can’t do it yet but if I practice more I know I will one day. Anyway, she should have supported me! Isn’t that what teammates are supposed to do?”

“Do you want me to hide a worm in her backpack next time she comes visit?”

The words mix with the wind as the carousel takes speed and soon they stop making any sense.

A few steps ahead of them, among horses running wild, is an empty space nothing or no one dares to fill. Suga looks around himself to have the certainty of something he already knows.

The blue carriage is gone, and with it the horses that pulled it.

Dust has settled in its spot, old and crusted with dirt, snow has long covered every trail that may have led somewhere.

From the corner of his eye Suga catches Daichi jump on the carousel and gives a quick goodbye to the specks of dust - that in the dawning light look much like stars. _I hope you’re happy, wherever you are._

“Daddy!”

“Dad, do you see how fast we are going? Are you watching?”

“Of course, baby.” Above Ayame’s head their eyes meet. “I’m watching.”

_I hope you’re as happy as I am in this very moment._

Daichi moves in closer, along with him he does, and they share a kiss to the twinkling of jingles. Soft, persuasive for more. Suga parts his lips to it, but just as his eyes have fallen closed a gasp of wind makes the fringes of his scarf fly. They get into his mouth. He starts away from Daichi and just like that he’s laughing.

He laughs and laughs till the cold of winter has left his bones.

Daichi rolls his eyes to the sky. “Where are the other two?” he asks when he’s finally composed himself, lips still shiny with spit.

Suga blinks at him. The other two who?

He starts at the way Daichi looks around the carousel. “Dai, there’s only us here...” he means to say, but all of a sudden, laughter.

And Daichi lights up.

He raises a hand to wave them over – them? who is ‘them’? - and something glitters on his bronze skin, a band of gold worn on his ring finger. More laughter, children’s laughter.

Suga follows his gaze, with his heart in his throat, but all he sees in this blinding light are silhouettes. One of them, the smaller one, has hair the same colour as his own.

He blinks again, but past this light now there are only Daichi’s eyes.

“Hey.” Daichi’s voice in his ears.

“Hey, you.”

It was just a dream.

He sighs and for a moment he covers his face, warm palms on warmer cheeks he tries to shake himself awake. It was just a dream.

Just a dream.

Between his fingers he whispers “good morning” and it comes out shaky, strained in his throat. The sheets, Daichi’s sheets, are tangled around his ankles. It’s annoying. He makes to kick them away but through creases of cotton seeps a crisp, sudden breeze that has the skin of his calves break into goosebumps.

“Damn it.” He curses, he shivers. “This is unacceptable.”

Next to him Daichi snorts. The mattress dips and shakes as he moves but a few tugs and Suga’s feet are covered again, safe under the sheets. “You and mornings, I swear. You’ll never learn to get along, will you?”

“No, I’m afraid we’re incompatible.”

A warm breath breaks against Suga’s knuckles, “I thought so,” and Daichi kisses the hands still covering his face. Light pecks, gentle and insistent, pressed on each of his fingers till they part enough for him to show himself.

“That’s better.”

The light shines through once more and now their lips are the ones to meet, in a peck that lingers enough for their hearts to miss a beat. Then just as he’d come Daichi moves away, rests with his cheek on his palm looking down at him the same way he was before.

Suga lets him. He stretches so his back draws an arc  in the air and he smiles when Daichi’s eyes darken at the sight. _You’re too easy, Sawamura._

Taking advantage of the moment he asks. “Were you watching me sleep?”

“Um...”

That’s an answer in itself. “You were! Oh God, I’m dating a creep!”

“S-shut up, it was-”

“How long were you lying there, watching me at my most vulnerable? Do you sleep at all at night or do you just fake it, wait for me to fall into deep slumber and then go all vampire from Twilight on me?”

Busy as he is finding analogies that make sense this early in the morning he misses the dangerous expression crossing Daichi’s face, so it’s with surprise that he soon finds himself prisoner in the hold of strong arms. “Daichi, what-”

Fingers dance on his waist, skim the curve of his stomach.

Before he can order Daichi to stop Suga is laughing from the depth of his belly. He laughs and he shakes with every touch of Daichi’s hands on his skin and the tears spill from his eyes to fall in the crook of Daichi’s neck. “You are- ah, shit. You’re despicable.”

“Take those words back and I’ll stop.”

Suga keeps quiet and with his silence comes more torture. Along his sides and following his ribs Daichi’s fingers move, they double, they feel like hundreds all on him.

“Just say it, Sug.” Daichi is laughing too, at the way he squirms and tries to fight.

Suga hates him so much.

“Alright, alright.”

He’s never loved before, not the way he loves this man. “I give up.”

It stops. The hands that touch at his waist are gentle now, they stroke his hipbones with unspeakable care. The arms that are holding him are warm, strong but not firm. Daichi moves into him and they are one, impossibly close.

Their chests touch with every breath they take.

Suga laughs at the stubble tickling his lips. “That wasn’t very nice,” he whispers on Daichi’s lips, he licks them when he finds them dry, chapped for the lack of care.

“Koushi...”

The gravelly quality of Daichi’s voice sends shivers down his spine.

He always hated losing. At something like this too he wants to be the one to tease, to make the rules, to force the pleads out. But with Daichi even surrendering feels good. It feels like a victory.

And in a way, he supposes, that’s just what it is.

He kisses Daichi’s chin, gentle, the way he’s learned from him, and at the thought he smiles.

A moment and just as fast Daichi’s breath falters, stuck between his lungs and his throat. “You’re smiling.”

His eyes are soft with something Suga can’t decipher, the words he just whispered a joke he doesn’t get. “Yeah, well, I’ve been told I’m the kind of person who smiles pretty often?”

Daichi snorts at his own clumsiness and smiles too, almost apologetic. His hand moves to brush Suga’s hair away, but some of it still sticks to the salty trails left by tears. Careful he cards his fingers through it, over and over, in a caress that traces Suga’s jaw, his chin, all the way across his cheekbone to stop only on his lips.

With just his thumb Daichi draws their shape. “You were smiling before too,” he murmurs and his eyes, which all along were fixed on his cupid’s bow finally rise to meet Suga’s once again. “While you were asleep.”

Oh.

“I...I was?”

“Yes.”

Now Daichi is smiling too. “You were sleeping and you had this smile on your face...” He swallows words down and his expression turns into something even softer. “Were you, were you having a nice dream?”

Yes. “Yes, I was...”

The back of Daichi’s hand rubs his cheek. Against his skin is only the gentleness of touch, the calluses on his fingertips.

No metal, no golden band. Of course. That was just a dream. Down the hall there is two children sleeping, two and no more, and neither of them has hair the colour of quicksilver. That was just a dream.

Suga knows that. “It was good, yes. It was nice.”

Lovely, beautiful.

His dreams too have changed at last.

He burrows in Daichi’s arms and just like that he’s warm all over. He smiles again. “But this is nice too.”

When Daichi leans in for a kiss Suga’s lips are already parted for him.

 

“Ugh, morning breath.”

The mist of sunrise has cleared. In a few minutes quick steps will be heard down the hallway, voices calling both their names and another day will have officially begun.

In a few minutes.

Suga closes his eyes to the bright of the sun and runs his hands down the expanse of Daichi’s naked back. Muscles shift, beautifully firm beneath his fingertips.

“Don’t tell me you want me to go brush my teeth, Sug.”

God no.

His nails dig into shoulder blades. “If I had my way, Sawamura, you’d never get to leave this bed.”

Laughter explodes in the dip of collarbones and he continues as it shakes him too. “Just don’t kiss me on the mouth!”

In response Daichi nips the centre of his chest. “Not the mouth, got it,” he whispers along the trail he’s kissed to Suga’s nipple, “but everywhere else is game, right?”

Suga tugs at his hair. “Absolutely.”

“I’m all yours, big guy.”

Daichi doesn’t need to be told twice. With two sharp tugs he lifts Suga’s shirt and in the darkness underneath the sheets he finds every mole scattered on Suga’s stomach, he traces paths between them all like scribbled lines on a canvas.

The knowledge that the kids might wake up every moment now keeps them in check, lingering kisses and chaste touches that translate only to intimacy.

Suga sighs, he shivers for every graze of Daichi’s lips but his hands stay on solid arms. The tingling of his body causes sparks to fly in the black behind his closed eyelids. He wants more and yet he doesn’t.

“Daichi...”

When he wraps his arms around Daichi’s shoulders Daichi covers him with his body, and a sigh he can’t keep in. Open-mouthed kisses pressed all along his collarbone. “I’m sorry...”

“For what?”

“That we, you know, that we can’t...”

Trust Daichi Sawamura to fuck his brains out in the night and then not finding the courage to pronounce the word ‘sex’ in the light of day. Suga raises his eyes to the perfectly painted bedroom ceiling and pats Daichi’s bum in understanding. “It’s alright, babe.”

“I mean, it’d be a real buzzkiller in other circumstances, but turns out I like to stick around for more than your prowess in bed so it’s cool.”

Daichi props himself up on his forearms to look into his eyes. A smile is already forcing the corners of his mouth upward. “Oh yeah? I’d like to hear about these ulterior motives of yours, _babe_.”

Suga purses his lips in thought. “Let’s see, for one you’re pretty well-off. Which is good for my very expensive taste.”

“Yeah, I hear the price of shrimp accessories has been increasing exponentially in the past few months.”

“Shush it. You’re a lawyer as well, and lawyers are always good to have on your side.”

“I’m a divorce lawyer though.”

“Doesn’t matter, you’re still in the business.”

“I see.”

Daichi’s hair still stands where he was resting earlier on the pillow. Suga smoothes them down with his fingers. _You look adorable in the morning_ , another valid reason. He watches Daichi press a kiss on his wrist and chooses another truth instead. “You have two wonderful children.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

“I don’t think anyone could. I can take having to spend time with you if that means I get to see them every day.”

Daichi kisses the centre of his palm. His eyes have turned soft again, wonderfully tender.

Suga wraps his legs around his waist. “You’re also an excellent space heater. That comes very in handy in the colder seasons.”

“Especially considering how often you complain about my freezing toes.”

He presses those very same toes against Daichi’s calves and the smile that has brightened Daichi’s features so far turns quick into booming laughter, unrestrained and gorgeous, deep as the crashing of waves on a shore.

“What are you laughing at, it’s true! Every time I come to bed it’s always ‘put some socks on, Suga’ ‘did you take a walk around the North Pole, Suga’ ‘keep those stinky icicles away from me, Suga’! It’s very hurtful!”

“Ok, I’m pretty sure I’ve never said the last one...”

“I might have taken some poetic liberties to get my point across-”

“But I am sorry.” Daichi kisses the tip of his nose, and his cheek, the mole near his eye. His breath mixes with Suga’s and for a moment Suga forgets about the teasing, he forgets about morning breath, he forgets about everything at all and closes his eyes in wait.

The kiss comes, but only a graze as Daichi speaks again. “I actually love your freezing toes.”

Suga opens his eyes again. His heartbeat picks up before the way Daichi is looking at him now.

“I love your freezing toes,” Daichi says. That word, again.

Pronounced by him it’s the most wonderful sound, even if it’s just about his stupid toes. “Ok. Then I won’t worry about it anymore.”

He smiles and once again it makes Daichi breathless. He smiles and Daichi shakes his head, as though he was expecting another reaction, any other reaction from him.

“I love you.”

In the rare, blissful quiet of morning Suga hears those words for the first time. With the sun in his chest he keeps smiling. “I know.”

“You do?”

“Of course. You’re not exactly subtle, Sawamura.”

And Daichi snorts. He rolls his eyes and he shakes his head, just as disbelieving as before. Then, unexpected, he smirks. “Ok so maybe you did, but I still felt your heart skip a beat just now.”

Damn it.

“That was simply a...a natural reaction.”

“Of course.”

“It was! A handsome man tells you he loves you, your heart starts acting up! It’s perfectly normal. Not that I would know since, well, since no one ever told me but I would imagine this is how it works.”

“No one ever told you...” A weird expression crosses Daichi’s face, but it’s gone away fast, replaced by the tenderness that gave Daichi away months ago. He tucks Suga’s bangs behind his ear and without ever looking away from his eyes he says it again. “I love you.”

“I love your freezing toes. I love your ankles, and your calves...” His hand rises up his knee, up to knead his thigh. “I love your hips. Every single one of your moles...”

“I know. I know. I know.”

They kiss again. “I’m sorry I made you wait.”

“It’s alright.”

“I just wanted...I wanted you to be sure that I meant it. Because I do, I love you.”

Suga nods. He takes Daichi’s face in his hands and presses their foreheads close. Nothing else. After words like those, what else is there to say?

 

The sun has turned warm on their bed sheets. Daichi kisses the shell of his ear and snickers as the pitter-patter of small feet on the parquet finally reaches them.

Giggles behind the closed door.

Suga rests his cheek on Daichi’s chest and quick they both feign sleep.

The doorknob turns, more giggles poorly suffocated behind tiny hands. Daichi lets out a loud snore and Suga has to bite the inside of his cheek not to burst out laughing too.

The mattress squeaks, the sheets stretch on their feet. Ayame takes in a deep breath, but just as she’s about to yell at them to ‘wake up, old men’ he and Daichi sit up. To squeals and protests they close their arms around still sleepy children and lean back down on the bed.

“Not fair, you were faking it?”

“Yep!”

“We did it too many times, Aya, I told you.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re always right, Dede. Blah blah blah.”

“I am always right...”

Muttering under his breath Kaede finds his way between the sheets. He hides his face in the crook of Suga’s neck and, finally warm, he yawns till a few tears fall.

“You’re tired, baby?”

A nod and small hands curl around the fabric of his shirt. Suga rubs the small back under his palms. So close he can feel the way Kaede’s breathing synchronizes with his own and without realizing he begins to hum a tune. ‘The book of love is long and boring...’

“We finished your posters,” Ayame whispers from her place between him and Daichi. Her lids are heavy with sleep too but for every time her eyes close she fights it harder. “Are you ready for the match?”

She laughs when they answer her with a somber ‘no’. “You’ll be great,” she tells them with heart-warming certainty, only to pat both their hands in comfort.

“But what if we are not?”

“Well, if you suck all you gotta do is practice more. Isn’t that right, Suga-san?”

“It sure is, love.”

‘No one can read the damn thing.’

Kaede opens an eye, out of nowhere he presses a hand on his sister’s mouth. “A’right, Aya, they got it. Now let me sleep.”

Any other day and the girl in question would have exploded with indignation, but on this lazy Sunday morning that treads like honey down a silver spoon she just yawns and rests her cheek soft on Suga’s shoulder.

“How much time do we have?” she asks as her breath evens.

All the time in the world for you. “A good half hour.”

“Mmm.”

Suga kisses her hair, dark as coal. “Now sleep, we’ll wake you when it’s time.”

“’kay.” And soon her snores too fill the quiet.

Before her and Kaede, Suga had never known children could snore. That they would cling so stubbornly to him, and never let him leave. He’d never thought a king-size bed could feel so wonderfully small.

How his life has changed.

Lips graze his temple and when Daichi wraps an arm, warm and solid around them he lets his eyes fall closed again to the blinding light. Under his breath he keeps humming.

‘It’s full of charts and facts and figures, and instructions for dancing.’

 

“Have I ever told you just how good you look in this uniform?”

Suga snorts and after a quick look around the changing room he hip-checks the idiot standing next to him. “You’re one to talk, captain.”

“I’m not your captain, Sug, stop calling me that.”

“But you will be soon. It’s just a matter of time before-”

“Over there, what are you two whispering about?”

Suga smiles winningly at Morisuke and waves his hand around in a careless ‘nothing’. Two days after their official welcome to the team Yaku Morisuke, part-time libero and full-time nagger, had taken them aside and given them a talk concerning the amount of public displays of affection they are allowed to engage in. Which is, of course, zero.

A small price to pay, one could say, for the opportunity to play volleyball again. And Suga would agree if his boyfriend’s godlike thighs weren’t left so deliciously exposed in their uniform shorts.

As it is, it’s just pure torture.

Morisuke rolls his eyes at him but from the twitching of his mouth Suga can tell he’s amused under all that grump. Thankfully.

Asahi clears his throat from the centre of the room and calls their names one by one. In five minutes it all starts.

Today’s match. A friendly game with the Neighbourhood Association located in Edogawa, that’s all. To Suga it’s anything but.

This will be the first match he’s played since who he’d hoped would become his coach told him to quit before getting lost in a dream that could never be. This will be the first match he’s played since he accepted those words as truth and gave up one of the things he held most dear.

His first match with this jersey – midnight blue and gold. It doesn’t suit him well as black and orange did, or maybe it just doesn’t speak to his heart the way those colours used to, but it’s a second chance. And Suga will catch it, with his palms splayed and turned to the sky.

He nods to Asahi and fixes his kneepads. His wristbands, his jersey. He tries to shake the tension off his shoulders but it doesn’t really work.

_As long as it doesn’t cloud your brain, use it to find your way forward._

Ukai-san’s words before their match against Shiratorizawa. They had won then, but today...

Today is still to write.

Suga looks into the mirror hanging in his locker and nods again. He moves, one foot ahead of the other. Before his eyes the background changes and suddenly he’s on the court again, first line center. His place as a setter.

The setter.

A hand rests on the small of his back, only for the time of a blink. Daichi.

His spine straightens with a warmth that spreads from within and he turns to meet those eyes. They share a smile, like this morning they shared a bed, and together they look up to the people sitting in the stands.

Ayame and Kaede are standing on their seats between Sachiko-san and Celeste. Forgotten all decorum they cheer and whistle well above the buzzing of chatter and they are waving their posters so high no one except Taka could manage to sit in the few rows behind them.

Suga and Daichi’s names dance in the air, with hearts drawn all around and black feathers to pierce them. On the largest poster is written in dark block letters ‘Crows are omnivores.’

Then, in gold underneath: ‘So beware, because our dads will eat you alive’.

Suga stares at that word. For a moment it’s all he sees.

He chuckles deep inside his chest, right where elation spreads, but when the piercing trill of a whistle echoes in the static background noise his team finds him ready.

Edogawa serves on Daichi. Their first mistake. The ball hits hard, a trajectory that’s fast but never unpredictable, and Daichi gets into receiving stance with an ease that comes from gestures practiced his whole life. The ball soars into the air.

To land right on his fingertips, a perfect receive.

Ready to set a play that won’t fail.

Suga hazards a look around but there is only one choice he can make right now.

A tall set, away from the net. He’s practiced this toss over and over the past couple of months, but still he’s as careful as possible with it. He must be.

On his left Asahi jumps. He seems to fly with arms as long as wings. The ball makes thundering noise when it’s hit by his open palm.

The wall crumbles before Suga’s eyes. The first point of the match is theirs.

 

They don’t win.

Compared to them Edogawa is a well-oiled machine, its members used to play with each other, and they deserve the win that comes at tie-break. But it’s point to point till the end, it’s fighting tooth and nail on every ball, and when the last ball has dropped, on their side of the court, Suga can’t bring himself to feel too upset.

The last point they took was with a toss he made to Daichi and the thrill that gave him is not something that ceases to exist when the whistle blows.

In the stands Ayame stops cheering only for the time it takes her to sigh, then she cups her hands around her mouth and yells, for everyone to hear, that her daddy and ‘her Suga-san’ were awesome anyway. Kaede waves at them, still with that poster in his hand.

No, Suga is not upset at all.

Later tonight he knows he’ll revise every play he made, as a setter this too is his duty, and tomorrow he’ll come to the gym with twice the will to work hard. But for now he smiles at the look in his children’s eyes, he smiles at that poster, he smiles at the way Celeste’s hair glimmers silver under the neon lights.

Stepping out of the court Daichi pulls Suga close by the waist and deaf to Morisuke’s impatient grumbling presses a firm kiss on his lips. “Good game,” he says, secure, like he wants Suga to believe it too.

Euphoric like Suga feels.

“You too, captain.”

They walk into the changing room like this, arms around waist and shoulders, their breaths laboured with an effort they’d been missing.

 

“Daichi, here!”

“You guys were great!”

“Suga-san!”

Out of their uniforms and into every day clothes the defeat stings a bit more.

The kids run to hug them as soon as they come out of the gym and Suga hides in the crook of their necks, he basks in the sound of their laughter like he would in the sunlight after a rainy season that seemed to never end.

“You played well, Suga-san,” Ayame tells him, serious, almost severe in her declaration.

He shrugs. He’s not convinced at all that he did, the years he spent away he felt them in every clumsy gesture, in every delayed reaction, like a scarlet letter of shame, but it means more than he can express that Ayame thinks so. “Thank you, dear.”

“But I need to practice my tosses more. Now, if only I knew a wing spiker that could assist me and tell me which sets are good and which are n-”

“Me! Me!”

Ayame whoops, then turns around to get her father up to speed. “Did you hear that, dad? Suga-san is going to practice with me from now on!”

Simple words now set in stone.

“Is that so? Then I guess I’ll have to join too. Can’t have you guys leaving me behind.”

“And what do I do?”

They all turn to look at Kaede, who’s staring down now at grey pebbles and asphalt and fiddling nervously with the corners of his poster. It always weighs on him that volleyball is not something he can share with them.

Suga takes him in his arms before this sadness can stick to him like second skin. “You, my little chipmunk,” he says, “you have the hardest role to play.”

“B-but I don’t know volleyball...”

“Maybe not but you know us and I’ll tell you a secret: sitting on the stands is not nearly as easy as it seems. You have to cheer us up when we are having a lousy volleyball day. You have to believe in us even when we don’t and worst of all, you have to watch us as we are making lots of stupid, stupid mistakes that we know we could be avoiding. That’s not easy at all, trust me, and that’s what we all need you to do for us.”

“Do you think can do it, kiddo?”

Kaede raises his eyes again. He nods with a fierce sort of purpose blazing in his eyes. “I can do that, yeah.”

And at last he smiles.

Victory too has changed in Suga’s life, it comes in shapes he would have never recognized before.

 

Sachiko-san and Celeste check them for injuries, they sigh in near despair at the red splotches on their forearms but their voices are rough and gravelly with the cheers of earlier. They congratulate them torn between worry and lingering excitement, and Suga has no doubt they’ll invite themselves to the next, actually to any other match the Association might organize.

Celeste walks to him when a semblance of calm has settled around them and without warning she takes his face in her hands. She presses kisses on his cheeks and when Suga chuckles she laughs too, strained in her throat and just a little shrill.

“I’m sorry you didn’t win, Koushi.”

“It’s alright. The other team played better than we did.”

She seems about to deny it but in the next breath she only says “I had a good time.”

I’m glad I came, I’m glad you invited me.

Suga hears the unspoken words in her voice and nods. “It’s good to hear that.”

Thank you for coming when I asked you to.

She has to leave soon after, to open the shop, but she promises to call tomorrow to invite them all for dinner one of these days. Sachiko-san goes with her, home to get started on lunch, and they keep turning to wave at them every couple of steps they take.

Suga feels Daichi’s eyes on him as they go and kisses that lingering concern away.

It’s still tentative, between him and Celeste, but it’s something. It’s a relationship and Suga is not one to scare away easily in front of a path that has yet to be paved. Not anymore at least.

Daichi kisses him back and after a quick goodbye to the small crowd still gathered by the gym doors they leave too, with the children safe between them.

Near the narrow alley that leads north they pass by two familiar, and very tall, figures. Taka and Asahi, talking in cautious tones that involve much shuffling of feet and embarrassed stammering. Daichi makes to walk toward them, to give Taka a brief hello, but Suga stops him with a withering glare.

“Don’t,” is all he needs to say.

Taka has been trying to ask Asahi out for weeks now and Suga is not going to give him another reason to think it’s not the right time. Too many pep-talks have led to this moment, too much disappointment. No one must ruin it.

Suga throws his friend a worried look, then a silent prayer to the sky, - please let it go well, please let it go well, - and with a wink he teases “Anyone here wants to go to the playground?”

In a blink he and Daichi are gone, running breathless after children tugging on their sleeves.

 

The playground Daichi directs them to is a clear between musters of centenarian trees.

It smells of grass and still of early morning dew when it’s past midday and Suga smiles at the familiar swing set, the seesaws twinkling in the warming sun.

“So this is why you shot down the half dozen perfectly good playgrounds we walked past...”

The children have already let go of their hands. Secluded as this corner of green is they are alone to do as they please, only neither of them seems to know what that is.

“You wanna do the swings first, Dede?”

“No, no, swings last because they are the best!”

Daichi groans when, a few seconds apart, they both trip on the same root in their haste to get to the jungle gym, but they are quick to wave any concern away. Shaking dirt off their hands they start running again, faster than before, as they chant “we’re fine, dad, we’re fine” without respite. Needless to say Daichi doesn’t look much comforted.

“Next time we should lend them our kneepads...” he grumbles with his forehead in hand.

Suga snorts. “Kneepads? Oh please, if it were up to you, Dai, you’d have them wearing a full-body armour.”

Daichi doesn’t try to argue. Filling the space the kids just left between them he walks to Suga and smiles, just on this side of crooked. “Do you mind?”

“What? That you want our children to go around looking like the Michelin man?”

A playful nip on his lobe and he’s laughing against Suga’s skin. “No,” he says. “Do you mind that I took you here?”

“Oh.”

The first leaves of autumn are only now starting to fall to the ground. Suga tips his head back to the sky and follows one, as it detaches from its home and takes on its last flight. “No, not at all.”

“It’s a beautiful place.”

The leaf comes to rest without a sound near their feet.

It was the start of summer the first time they happened here. Now all around them is gold and red, and the outline of baring branches on a powder background.

Now he has found his place in Daichi’s arms.

The kids bicker going down the slide and just as quick they laugh when mud stains their shoes. Suga smiles with them. Before Daichi he closes his eyes and without another word he takes his lips, for a kiss he wants to feel in his toes.

It is, it’s felt in every cell of his body. Daichi’s lips caress his own, gentle as always and chapped with stress they pry his own open to a heat he knows now but that he will never expect. Breaths mingle in one, they are sharing them now from deep inside their lungs, and Suga shivers.

The fall breeze rises and he shivers at its touch on the flushed skin of his cheeks.

A moment, a minute – or was it a lifetime? – and Kaede calls their names from just a few steps away. It all stops with a lingering peck.

“Later,” Suga promises, and when all Daichi does is gape he takes him by the hand and leads him to the children.

“You guys have no self-control.”

Ayame lectures them with shoulders that shake to poorly repressed laughter but it’s all soon forgotten in favour of the swings. She hops on with ease, going back and forth on her foot to gain some speed, and in a blink she’s but a silhouette in the air.

“Catch up to me if you can!” is all she yells at her brother through bouts of cheers. The tips of her toes reach the horizon.

Fast above the sky she can’t hear the raspberry Kaede blows her. “I will as soon as I get on this thing...” he mumbles through clenched teeth and a quick look to Daichi and Suga is enough to spur them into action.

Together they help him on the seat. “Hold on to the chains, Kaede.”

“I know that, dad. This is not my first time on the swings.”

Suga bites the inside of his cheek but laughter still pours out of him, in seal-like guffaws he can’t contain. Daichi’s eyes glitter at the sound, which the winds of course carries along to an echo. “What was that, Sug?”

“Nothing. Shut up.”

They push Kaede once, twice, three times, but soon he’s the one to wave them away. With his legs and arms he pulls himself up, up to the heights his sister has already explored and higher still. He laughs then and calls his sister’s name and all that’s left for Daichi and Suga to do is watch him, watch them with careful eyes.

That shine whenever the sun comes close within their grasp.

How much they’ve grown since Suga first met them...

“They grow up too fast,” Daichi tells him.

_I know now._

“I know.”

The image comes, unbidden, two more silhouettes backlit by the sun.

_One of them had silver hair._

Suga shakes his head, - it’s too soon, it’s too fast, - but still...but still he keeps it, safe in a corner deep inside his chest. It’s something too beautiful for him to throw away. “I know.”

One day maybe...

One day.

He and Daichi walk in silence to the seesaw and in silence they sit, both on the same end. Beside them, around the gnarled trunk of an old oak tree, is blooming a plant of lily of the valley. On the crown of some flowers drops of dew still shine untouched in the shade.

Promise of happiness.

Suga reaches out to catch one on his fingertip but it falls like a tear down his open palm. It tickles too, like the first tear always does trailing down yet dry cheeks.

“You know, I’ve never felt so good about a defeat before.”

Warm and unexpected in the crook of his neck Daichi laughs. “Yeah. Maybe the secret to it is having some hyperactive four and nine year olds around.”

“To tire you down so much you won’t even have the strength to feel bad about yourself?”

“Precisely.”

“Ah, if only I had known this back in high school. Fool that I was I never agreed to babysit the days after a match...”

Daichi bumps their shoulders together. There is laughter that still lingers at the corners of his mouth but his eyes are soft, earnest with a thought he’s desperate to voice. “Hey.”

Suga echoes him. “Hey, you.”

He rests his forehead, soft on Daichi’s temple.

Daichi doesn’t move away. “We make a good team,” he tells him, in the silent moments between their breaths. In every point, in every way they are touching it’s pure warmth.

“Yes. We do.”

Every single day. “It feels good to play at your side.”

_Every single day._

The water drop sneaks underneath the cuff of Suga’s shirt, it runs down his wrist to a pulse that quickens too fast. Suga feels it soak his sleeve and without wasting a second more he kisses the lips calling his name. “Koushi...”

Again. “ _Koushi_.” Again, and again.

As much as he can, before another voice inevitably demands their undivided attention.

“Suga-san! Daddy! Look how high I’m going!”

(Take to the skies.)

They wave to the kids with breaths broken and lips still tingling. Then Daichi asks him, in a whisper almost lost to the breeze “You want to join them?”

Suga smiles. He shakes his head. “No. I’m good here.”

_With the ground for the first time steady beneath my feet._

His fingers find Daichi’s, and in the light of day they slowly intertwine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, so very much.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first multi-chaptered fic, i'm both excited and terrified. Well, um, i hope you guys will find this intriguing and decide to give this a shot? Updates should come weekly.  
> Come yell at me about Daisuga on [twitter](https://twitter.com/JKNo_emi) !


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